it   "        i 

|l»     »l 


VAGABOND 
IN 
NEW  YORK 

OLIVER  MADOX 
HUEFFER 


III!  II     HIM)     „ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


A  VAGABOND  IN  NEW  YORK 


My  favorite  pitch  is  the  ring  of  benches  round  the  fountain 
opposite  the  General  Post  Office. 


A  VAGABOND 
IN    NEW    YORK 


Author  of  "The  Artistic  Temperament,"  "Hunt  the 
Slipper,"  "Where  Truth  Lies,"  etc.,  etc. 


EIGHT  ILL  USTRA  TIONS 

BY 
ROY  E.  HALLINGS 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 
TORONTO:  BELL  &  COCKBURN  MCMXIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 
BY  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


THE    VAIL-BALLOU     COMPANY 
Binghamton,  New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


F 


EHRWARTEND 


640555 


"For  to  admire  and  for  to  see, 

For  to  be'old  this  world  so  wide; 
It  never  done  no  good  to  me, 
But  I  can't  stop  it  if  I  tried." 

Kipling. 


PREFACE 

AT  the  time  when  some  of  these 
sketches  were  appearing  in  the 
pages  of  Truth  I  received  a 
letter  from  an  earnest-minded  reader,  enquir- 
ing whether  they  were  supposed  to  be  "  re- 
motely founded  on  fact,"  or  were  merely  "  the 
imaginative  efforts  of  a  common  or  garden 
liar."  Perhaps  I  should  therefore  preface 
them  in  their  collected  form  with  the  assurance 
that  they  are  one  and  all  "  founded  on  fact," 
not  over  and  above  remotely.  They  are 
based,  as  they  profess  to  be,  upon  the  experi- 
ences of  a  young  Englishman  during  a  period 
of  vagabondage  enjoyed  in  New  York  and 
thereabouts.  They  do  not  however  claim  the 
exact  fidelity  to  fact  of  Hansard  or  a  Law  Re- 
port. Vagabondage  is  a  mental  no  less  than  a 
physical  state  of  being  and,  just  as  a  tramp's 

9 


Preface 

progress  across  the  sunny  side  of  life  is  less 
direct  than  is,  say,  that  of  a  bank-manager 
through  the  shadows,  so  his  mind  recalls  less 
faithfully  all  and  every  entry  in  the  mnemonical 
ledger.  Perhaps  then,  in  this  narrative  some 
terminological  inexactitude  may  here  and  there 
find  expression  in  word,  or  exclamation  mark, 
or  period.  Here  and  there  memory  may 
heighten  a  high-light  or  erase  a  shadow.  No 
vagabond  could  be  expected  to  swear  in  a  court 
of  law  to  the  exact  size  or  brilliancy  of  every 
politician's  near-diamond  bosom-pin  which  may 
have  cast  its  light  across  his  path  —  or  his 
pages  —  or  that  the  politician  smoked  exactly 
such  a  cigar  as  memory  recalls,  or  indeed 
that  he  smoked  a  cigar  at  all.  Sufficient, 
surely,  that  as  such  the  Vagabond  recalls  him, 
as  smoking,  and  smoking  a  cigar,  and  that  the 
cigar  was  very  large  and  rank.  Be  it  at  least 
believed  by  the  gentlemen  of  the  jury  that  such 
a  politician  there  was,  such  a  steamboat  skip- 
per, such  a  policeman,  such  an  elephant,  as 
those  the  Vagabond  has  sought  to  draw,  and 
that  their  doings  and  sayings,  their  relation- 

10 


Preface 

ship  towards  him  and  towards  each  other  are 
recorded  with  as  much  fidelity  as  memory  will 
allow. 

Naturally  again,  they  do  not  appear  under 
their  real  names.  You  may  walk  miles  along 
Sixth  Avenue  and  never  find  Mr.  Cholmondely's 
laboratory;  the  Officer  who  directs  the  traffic 
at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Union  Square 
will  not  answer  to  the  name  of  Dempsey;  may 
even  deny  the  existence  of  any  officer  answer- 
ing to  that  name.  Yet  you  may  believe  with- 
out fear  of  being  led  astray  that  Mr.  Chol- 
mondely,  however  called,  is  at  this  moment 
somewhere  adapting  chickens  to  a  new  career; 
that  Dempsey,  whitest  man  who  ever  trod  shoe- 
leather,  is  somewhere  directing  traffic;  that 
somewhere  Gladys,  unmindful  of  her  earlier 
loves,  is  making  eyes  —  red,  piggy  eyes  —  at 
her  mahout  of  the  moment. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  these  poor 
sketches  make  any  claim  to  pass  as  "  Impres- 
sions of  America  "  or  that  they  profess  to  pic- 
ture New  York,  or  any  aspect  of  it,  or  any- 
thing at  all  but  the  little  piece  of  sidewalk  upon 

ii 


Preface 

which  the  Vagabond's  eyes  have  fallen  as  he 
quartered  it  in  search  of  cigarette-ends.  His 
not  the  conquering  brain,  the  all-seeing  eye, 
that  can  compress  a  nation  within  the  limits  of 
a  single  volume,  as  do  those  Kings  of  English 
Literature  who  from  time  to  time  make  Royal 
Progresses  across  the  Atlantic  and  back  for 
Literary  purposes.  No  fatted  calves  were 
ever  slain  for  the  Prodigal  Vagabond;  no 
streets  were  ever  decorated;  no  Fifth  Avenue 
mansions  flung  open  against  his  coming.  He 
has  but  hung  upon  the  skirts  of  the  cheering 
crowd,  thankful  if,  from  afar  off,  he  might 
catch  some  vague  glimpse  of  the  Features,  the 
Repose,  of  the  Great  Man.  Not  for  him  to  be 
dined  and  wined,  to  be  feted  and  ovated;  to 
discuss,  while  thousands  hang  enraptured  on 
his  lips  or  weep  over  the  whorlings  of  his 
fruitful  pen,  the  Spirit  of  the  American  People, 
the  Tendencies  of  American  Social  Life,  the 
Prospects  of  American  Literature,  or,  most 
precious  of  all,  Himself  and  his  Undying 
Works,  considered  in  the  light  of  American 
royalties.  No  one  realises  more  fully  than 

12 


Preface 

does  the  shabby  Vagabond  the  impertinence 
that  bids  him  cry,  even  in  the  smallest  of  voices, 
these  Gutter  Gleanings.  At  least  let  it  be  re- 
membered in  his  favour  that  he  does  fully 
realise  his  own  limitations;  that  he  is  well 
aware  that  his  vision  is  from  Below,  not  from 
Above.  He  would  plead  also  that  if  his  point 
of  view  be  petty  and  sordid,  and  with  no  wish 
or  claim  to  be  Literary,  it  is  at  least  sincere. 

I  have  to  express  my  thanks  to  the  the  editor 
of  Truth  for  his  courteous  permission  to  in- 
clude among  the  rest  certain  sketches  which 
originally  appeared  in  that  journal. 

O.  M.  H. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

PREFACE    9 

I  A  BABY  IN  THE  BRONX      ....     21 

II     ON  SLEEPING  OUT 35 

III  THIEVES'  KITCHEN 41 

IV  THE  "  COP  "  AND  THE  "  COPPER  "     .     52 
V  THE  FREE  AND  ENLIGHTENED      .      .     60 

VI     BUSINESS  Is  BUSINESS 68 

VII  AMONG  THE  "  MOVIES  "     ....     75 

VIII  CONEY  ISLAND    .......     82 

IX    ''GLADYS" 90 

X  "WHO'S  GOT  THE  BUTTON?"      .      .    104 

XI    A  PAIR  OF  BOOTS 115 

XII    "  SEEING  NEW  YORK  " 130 

XIII  A  TURN  AT  STARVING 137 

XIV  THE  CHILD  TERRIBLE H5 

XV    CALLED  TO  THE  BAR 157 

XVI  A  SON  OF  THE  EMPIRE      ....    169 

XVII  UNDER  THE  RED  LIGHT      .      .      .      .182 

XVIII  IN  THE  MATTER  OF  MANNERS      .      .    190 

XIX  "FOLLOW  THE  CROWD"     .      .      .      .207 

XX  EASTWARD  Ho!  .                            .      .  218 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


My  favourite  pitch  is  the  ring  of  benches  round 
the  fountain  opposite  the  General  Post  Office 

Frontispiece 


FACING 

PAGE 


I  was  making  myself  a  cup  of  tea  over  the  gas- 
stove  when  Mrs.  Isaacs  came  in  to  have  a  little 
business  chat 26 

I  was  to  call  at  O'Keefe's  cafe  when  I  was  sent  for    64 

From  him  they  learnt  that,  as  well  as  a  magician 
and  a  Brahmin  of  the  highest  caste,  I  was  a  fakir 
and  a  guru 84 

We  used  to  take  exercise  together  on  the  sands  of 
Coney  Island  in  the  very  early  morning  .  .  .  102 

I  had  a  megaphone  and  explained  the  sights  in  a 
loud  voice 134 

She  made  love  to  me  from  the  first  time  she  saw  me 
with  my  ice-cream  tray 150 

I  was  sent  to  Mott  Street  to  get  the  details  of  an 
affair  .  .  180 


A  VAGABOND 
IN  NE  W  YORK 


CHAPTER  I 

A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


I  AM  not,  fundamentally,  a  baby-worship- 
per. Though,  admittedly,  necessary  to 
our  present  stage  of  evolution,  they  have 
always  seemed  to  me  to  be  adorable  rather  in 
the  abstract  than  in  the  concrete  and,  although 
I  hope  that,  in  a  case  of  shipwreck,  I  should 
willingly  give  up  my  place  in  the  boats  to  all  or 
any  babies  who  might  be  involved,  I  am  not 
altogether  sure  that  my  motive  would  be  one 
of  pure  chivalry.  Better  death,  I  am  inclined 
to  think,  than,  say,  six  babies  within  a  radius  of 
twenty  feet. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  babies  and  babies, 
and  I  gratefully  admit  that,  at  one  very  impor- 
tant crisis  in  my  life,  I  owed  the  preservation, 
if  not  of  my  sanity,  at  least  of  my  sense  of 
proportion,  to  a  very  young  baby  indeed.  It 

21 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

was  two  months  old,   or  thereabouts,   and  it 
lived  by  itself  in  the  Bronx. 

I  was  very  down  on  my  luck  just  then  and 
I  was  feeling  it  rather  badly.  I  got  used  to  it 
very  soon,  thanks  partly  to  the  baby  and  partly 
to  a  policeman,  as  you  shall  hear;  but  at  first  I 
felt  very  lonely  and  that  is  quite  the  worst 
feature  of  being  down  on  your  luck.  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  also,  that  for  an  English- 
man, New  York  is  one  of  the  worst  cities  to 
choose  for  the  purpose.  I  have  tried  several 
other  capitals,  Paris,  Berlin,  Rome  and  so  on, 
but  none  of  them  affect  me  with  quite  the  same 
sense  of  loneliness.  Personally,  I  should  not 
very  much  mind  starving,  or  going  to  prison, 
or  even,  I  daresay,  being  hanged,  so  long  as  the 
company  was  good.  In  Paris  now,  or  Berlin, 
you  do  not  expect  company,  good  or  bad. 
The  people  speak  another  language,  look  at 
life  out  of  other  eyes;  to  be  lonely  among  them 
is  no  more  than  natural,  just  as  it  would  be  in 
a  forest  or  a  big  field.  To  a  New  Yorker,  I 
have  no  doubt  London  would  seem  just  as 
lonely  as  does,  or  did,  New  York  to  me.  As 

22 


A  'Baby  in  the  Bronx 


it  happens,  I  am  a  Cockney,  and  when  it  comes 
to  starving  within  the  four-mile  radius,  I  can 
always,  at  a  pinch,  find  some  one  I  know  going 
through  the  same  experience  at  the  same  time, 
and  we  can  be  bright  and  cheerful  together  and 
share  our  impressions,  with  our  noses  pressed 
against  the  same  cook-shop  window.  So  no 
doubt  could  a  New  Yorker,  if  he  were  a  vaga- 
bond, in  New  York.  And  it  came  to  me  with 
a  shock  to  find  that  in  a  city  where  my  own 
language  was  spoken,  with  minor  variations, 
and  the  people  looked  and  thought  and  acted 
so  very  similarly  to  my  own  people,  that  I  had 
no  one,  absolutely  no  one,  with  whom  to  share 
my  hck  of  a  good  dinner. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  I  knew  no  one  in 
New  York.  At  the  time  I  must  have  known 
at  least  half-a-dozen  people,  some  of  them,  if 
not  intimately,  at  least  sufficiently  to  ask  them 
for  my  passage  back  to  England  with  a  fair 
chance  of  getting  it.  I  don't  know,  because  I 
never  tried,  but  I  expect  so.  I  did  very  nearly 
try,  once.  The  man  I  thought  of  had  an 
office,  off  Fifth  Avenue,  in  the  Thirties.  I 
23 


A  Vagabond,  in  New  York 

started  off,  three  times,  I  think,  or  perhaps 
more,  to  call  upon  him.  I  was  living  up  in  a 
cheap  hall-room  on  the  North  Side  of  Central 
Park  at  the  time  —  and  you  have  no  idea  what 
a  long  way  it  was  to  walk.  The  first  time  I 
did  actually  summon  up  courage  to  see  him,  and 
we  had  a  pleasant  chat  together,  and  he  asked 
me  how  I  was  getting  on  and  I  found  myself 
telling  him,  quite  involuntarily,  of  the  lot  I  was 
thinking  of  buying  on  Fifth  Avenue  and  the 
palace  I  was  going  to  run  up  there  when  I 
could  find  time  to  think  about  choosing  an 
architect.  I  tried,  I  suppose,  a  dozen  times 
during  that  interview,  to  come  to  the  point, 
arid  every  time  I  got  within  half  the  dictionary 
of  it  my  tongue  shied  and  threw  me  and  bolted 
off  on  its  own  account  round  a  corner  and  out 
of  sight.  I  gave  it  up  at  last  and  decided  I 
would  leave  it  until  next  day  because  there  was 
just  a  chance  that  I  might  before  then  pick  up 
a  purse  with  a  million  dollars  in  it  that  some 
one  had  dropped  in  the  street,  and  i«  that  case, 
of  course,  I  should  have  bothered  my  acquaint- 
ance unnecessarily. 

24 


A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


I  didn't  find  any  purse  and  I  started  out  to 
call  on  him  next  morning  bright  and  early.  I 
forced  myself  into  the  lift  all  right  and  into  his 
office  and  he  was  out.  I  said  I  would  call  back 
in  the  afternoon,  and  I  did,  and  I  forced  myself 
into  the  lift  all  right;  but,  when  I  got  to  the 
top,  I  couldn't  force  myself  through  the  door, 
so  I  hung  about  the  corridor  for  a  bit  and  then 
went  down  again.  And  the  next  time  I  called 
I  even  funked  entering  the  lift,  and  I  knew  by 
then  that  it  was  no  good  and  if  I  wanted  to 
raise  money  that  way  I  should  have  to  get 
somebody  to  do  it  for  me. 

I  needn't  go  into  the  reasons  why  I  was 
down  on  my  luck  just  then,  but  I  can  time  the 
moment  when  I  really  became  a  vagabond.  It 
was  the  evening  of  my  return  from  that  office 
in  the  Thirties.  It  was  about  seven  o'clock 
and  I  was  making  myself  a  cup  of  tea  over  the 
gas-stove  when  Mrs.  Isaacs  came  in,  to  have  a 
little  business-chat.  She  was  a  very  kind- 
hearted  woman  and  I  have  no  doubt  I  could 
have  got  round  her  again  if  I  had  tried  hard 
enough.  She  didn't  really  give  me  a  fair 

25 


'A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

chance  though,  because  almost  at  the  beginning 
she  told  me  that  she  had  only  trusted  me  so 
long  because  I  was  English  —  and  that  sort  of 
thing. 

I  really  believe  she  meant  it,  too  —  she  had 
never  let  lodgings  in  England  of  course  —  so 
there  was  only  one  thing  to  be  done.  She  let 
me  stop  there  that  night  and  in  the  morning  we 
went  into  the  value  of  what  I  had  got  left  in 
the  way  of  dressing-cases  and  clothes  and 
things.  She  was  much  too  generous ;  they  were 
really  worth  uncommonly  little,  I  fear,  but  it 
ended  as  satisfactorily  to  both  parties  as  could 
be  expected.  We  parted  quite  good  friends, 
that  is  to  say,  and  I  had  three  dollars  and  no 
liabilities  whatever.  When  it  is  a  question  of 
owing  money  that  you  can't  pay  I  would  very 
much  rather  have  an  American,  and  especially 
a  Jewish-American  as  creditor,  than  an  Eng- 
lishman. I  may  of  course  have  been  lucky, 
but,  as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  they  do  real- 
ise that  it  is  possible  to  be  hard-up  without 
being  necessarily  a  swindler,  and  that  the  hard- 
est words  cannot  get  money  out  of  an  empty 
26 


I  was  making   myself  a  cup  of   tea  over  the  gas-stove  when 
Mrs.  Isaacs  came  in  to  have  a  little  business  chat. 


A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


pocket.  What  is  more,  they  put  very  much 
more  faith  in  your  word  —  especially,  I 
honestly  believe,  if  you  are  English.  Mrs. 
Isaacs,  for  instance,  was  quite  ready  to  let  me 
depart  and  take  my  bag  and  baggage  with  me, 
if  I  would  only  promise  to  pay  he*  when  I 
could.  I  refused,  for  one  thing  because  I 
didn't  see  the  remotest  chance  of  ever  being 
able  to  pay  her  and,  after  what  she  had  said, 
I  didn't  feel  like  bilking  her;  for  another  I 
didn't  see  what  good  a  dressing-case  and  a  port- 
manteau would  be  to  me  if  I  had  nowhere  to 
put  them. 

That  morning  I  made  the  acquaintance  of 
the  Baby. 

In  the  days  before  I  became  a  vagabond  I 
was  very  fond  of  going  to  the  Bronx  Zoo.  I 
liked  the  beasts,  and  the  gardens  were  charm- 
ing, and  I  used  to  go  with  friends  I  was  fonrl  of 
and  altogether  I  had  very  pleasant  memories 
of  the  place.  So  while  I  was  suffering  under 
the  first  shock  of  realising  exactly  what  those 
three  dollars  meant  to  me,  I  started  out  for 
the  Bronx  Zoo.  I  hadn't  any  reason  that  I 
27 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

know  of;  my  mind  had  gone  out  of  action  for 
a  time,  and  I  suppose  I  went  to  the  Elevated 
station  and  took  my  ticket  and  got  down  at  the 
other  end  and  walked  into  the  Zoo  quite  auto- 
matically. At  least  I  cannot  remember  going 
there,  or  how,  or  why.  It  was  a  bright,  glit- 
tering day  and  I  was  mooning  about,  passively 
enjoying  the  sunshine  and  thinking  of  nothing 
at  all,  when  suddenly,  coming  from  somewhere 
very  close  at  hand,  I  heard  a  sigh.  It  was 
quite  the  most  melancholy  sigh  I  ever  heard, 
as  though  it  was  the  outcome  of  bearing  the 
whole  weight  of  the  world  upon  some  one's 
shoulders.  "  O-o-gh-h-o-o !  "  it  went,  tailing 
away  into  a  perfect  infinity  of  weariness.  "  O- 
o-o-gh-o-o !  " 

Somebody  was  feeling  pretty  bad  —  that  was 
obvious  enough;  who  that  somebody  could  be 
I  hid  no  idea.  I  was  at  the  top  of  a  little 
hillock,  where  four  paths  met;  I  could  see 
round  me  clearly  in  every  direction  and  there 
was  not  a  soul  in  sight,  man,  woman  or  child, 
cat,  dog  or  elephant.  There  was  a  bench-seat 
under  a  tree  just  behind  me,  and  I  found  my- 

28 


A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


self  bending  down  to  look  under  it  in  search  of 
that  mysterious  misery.  I  was  still  bending, 
when  I  heard  it  again,  more  melancholy  if  pos- 
sible than  before.  It  came  from  behind  me 
that  time  and  I  jumped  round  as  though  I 
thought  some  one  was  going  to  hit  me. 

In  the  angle  formed  by  two  of  the  paths  was 
a  low,  wired  enclosure,  triangular  in  shape  and 
about  the  size  of  a  small  room.  The  railing 
round  it  was  not  more  than  a  couple  of  feet 
high  and  it  was  open  to  the  sky,  so  it  obviously 
did  not  contain  any  very  savage  or  active  beast. 
In  the  middle  was  a  little  round  cemented  pool 
and  beside  it,  with  its  back  to  me,  a  low  square 
wooden  hutch.  Evidently  the  sighing  came 
from  that.  I  had  visions  of  finding  a  dying 
millionaire,  kidnapped  by  toughs  and  left  there 
to  die,  who,  when  I  rescued  him,  would  bless 
me  with  his  last  breath  and  press  into  my  haiid 
a  purse  containing  several  millions.  I  peered 
into  the  hutch  just  as  another  sigh  came  from 
it. 

It  was  not  a  millionaire,  at  all ;  it  was  a  baby 
sea-lion  and  it  was  very  unhappy  because  it  was 
29 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

lonely.  I  knew  that  at  once,  because  as  soon 
as  it  saw  me  it  came  waddling  out  of  its  hutch 
and  romped.  If  you  can  imagine  a  black 
sleeping  sack,  made  of  American  cloth  and 
rather  badly  packed,  romping,  you  will  know 
what  it  looked  like.  It  had  an  old,  old  face, 
hundreds  of  years  old,  and  it  had  a  shiny  bald 
pate  and  it  had  whiskers  and  a  healthy  mous- 
tache, and  it  was  really  glad  to  see  me.  I 
thought  at  first  it  might  be  hungry,  but  it  had 
a  sufficiency  of  food  at  hand.  It  was  only  un- 
happy and  lonely  and  wanting  its  mammy  and 
feeling  horribly  small  and  insignificant  in  a 
great,  hostile  world  that  it  couldn't  understand, 
and  dying  for  some  one  to  talk  to.  I  was  feel- 
ing like  that,  too,  and  so  we  made  friends  at 
once  and  I  have  never  had  a  truer  friend  or  one 
who  greeted  me  with  more  unfailing  gladness 
or  was  more  unfeignedly  sorry  when  I  left  him. 
It  wasn't  cupboard  love  either,  for  I  never 
gave  him  anything.  He  never  thought  of  of- 
fering me  anything  —  or  I  might  have  accepted 
it  gladly.  I  called  him  Chris,  after  a  former 
friend,  because  their  eyes  were  very  much  alike. 
30 


A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


We  could  never  quite  decide  which  of  us  had 
most  to  put  up  with.  Chris  had  more  food 
than  he  wanted  and  I  had  liberty;  he  was  al- 
ways longing  to  be  back  among  the  big  waves 
and  the  ice-packs  and  I  would  have  given  a 
good  deal  to  have  some  one  to  bring  me  my 
meals  regularly.  We  had  our  loneliness  in 
common.  ijfc, 

Chris  never  knew  how  much  he  meant  to  me 
—  in  the  way  of  giving  me  something  to  think 
of  beside  my  own  «  inles.  I  worked  out  at 
least  five  distinct  the  cfes  for  carrying  him  off 
and  setting  him  will  terty  in  the  Hudson.  I 
would  have  done  it,  too,  had  I  felt  certain  he 
would  benefit  by  the  change.  But  at  that  time 
I  was  realising  rather  fully  that  there  are  worse 
things  in  this  world  than  a  regular  position, 
with  a  regular  income  attached  to  it,  even  if  it 
meant  being  chained  to  a  desk,  or  forced  to 
adapt  a  round  body  to  a  square  hutch  —  so  I 
didn't.  I  feel  sorry,  sometimes,  even  now, 
that  my  heart  failed  me.  Chris  was  delicate, 
the  keeper  told  me,  and  they  scarcely  expected 
to  raise  him,  so  I  suppose  he  is  dead  now  and 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

out  of  his  troubles.     He  was  very  good  to-£ 
he  was. 

As  long  as  my  three  dollars  lasted  I  hur 
about  the  Bronx.  It  was  bright,  warm  weathe-* 
and  in  the  park  and  the  woodlands  round  about 
it  there  was  ample  sleeping  accommodation, 
and  most  of  the  daytime  I  spent  talking  to 
ft  iris  —  in  a  sort  of  dazed  day-dream,  not 
thinking  at  all,  only  feeling  dimly  that  there 
wasn't  anything  partic,^°r  to  do  or  any  partic- 
ular reason  to  do  it.  land,  bout  the  fourth  day 
I  began  to  re-orientaJOting  position.  Chris 
had  taught  me  that  I  w$  inrc  the  only  person 
in  the  world  who  had  his  difficulties  and  grad- 
ually it  began  to  come  over  me  that  my  posi- 
tion was  really  very  much  better  than  his,  be- 
cause he  could  not  escape  from  his  troubles,  try 
how  he  would,  and,  if  I  would  only  try,  I 
could.  I  waited  until  the  Monday,  because  on 
the  Sunday  there  were  a  great  many  people 
about,  and  we  had  very  little  chance  of  private 
talk  together.  On  the  Monday  I  bade  him 
good-bye  for  the  time,  and  he  gave  me  all 
the  encouragement  he  could  think  of,  and  as  I 
32 


A  Baby  in  the  Bronx 


Iked  away  down  the  little  hill  he  stood  up 
his  tail  against  the  railing  and  looked  after 

e  and  rolled  his  head  from  side  to  side  as 
nough  he  were  trying  to  wave  his  handker- 
chief to  me. 

It  seems  silly  enough  to  look  back  to,  but  it 
felt  uncommonly  like  saying  good-bye  to  a 
friend.  Some  day,  when  I  am  very  rich,  I  am 
going  back  to  the  Bronx  Zoo  —  and  if  Chris  is 
still  alive  I  am  going  to  buy  him  and  take  him 
back  to  somewhere  in  the  Arctic  Circle  and 
there  offer  him  the  chance  of  his  liberty.  I 
don't  believe  he  will  take  it,  somehow. 

I  took  the  Elevated  all  the  way  down  to  the 
Battery,  because  it  was  so  cheap,  and  I  knew 
that  there  was  the  business  end  of  New  York, 
where  I  must  look  for  a  clerkship,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort,  for  I  was  not  particular. 
The  sight  of  the  shipping-offices  at  the  Bowling 
Green  made  me  wonder  whether  I  should  not 
be  wise  to  get  myself  shipped  back  to  England 
as  a  pauper  immigrant.  But  somehow  the  idea 
didn't  smile  upon  me,  especially  when  I  thought 
of  Chris.  I  couldn't  find  any  work  —  you 

33 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

wouldn't  be  surprised,  if  you  could  know  how 
shabby  I  was  or  how  vague  about  my  acquire- 
ments—  and  that  night  I  slept  upon  a  bench 
in  Union  Square. 


CHAPTER  II 

On  Sleeping  Out 


I  HAVE  starved  in  three  capitals  —  Lon- 
don, Paris,  and  New  York  —  but  I  was 
never  so  depressed  in  my  life  as  to  hear, 
when  coming  home  to  the  Embankment  re- 
cently, of  the  absurd  new  system  they  have 
started  there.  To  wake  a  man  out  of  a  com- 
fortable snooze  and  give  him  a  ticket  for  a 
casual  ward  —  as  I  understand  is  now  being 
done  —  is  to  reduce  starvation  to  an  absurdity, 
to  bring  us  all  to  the  vulgar  level  of  the  small 
shopkeeper. 

Hitherto,  for  general  eligibility,  London  has 
been  but  a  little  way  behind  New  York  in  the 
matter  of  sleeping  out.  To  Paris  I  have  never 
been  partial;  it  is  too  full  of  adventure  for  a 
quiet  man.  There  are  at  least  as  many  un- 
speakables  in  London  or  New  York,  but  they 
35 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

are  for  the  most  part  opportunist ;  your  Apache 
of  Paris  is  a  sportsman.  There  may  be  twenty 
thousand  night-birds  in  either  English-speaking 
city  who  would  cut  your  throat  for  half-a- 
crown,  but  the  half-crown  is  to  them  a  neces- 
sary incidental.  Without  it  you  are  safe  from 
anything  more  than  horseplay.  But  your 
Parisian  murders  from  the  sheer  joie  de  vivre. 
You  are  to  him  no  more  than  a  head  of  game 
and  the  state  of  your  pockets  immaterial.  I 
have  known  a  man  to  be  killed  on  the  Boule- 
vard de  Clichy  at  three  in  the  morning  for  not 
possessing  a  box  of  matches.  And  if  you  con- 
sider the  kind  of  matches  obtainable  in  Paris 
you  can  realise  the  significance  of  such  an  in- 
cident. 

Compared  with,  say,  Madison  Square,  I  have 
always  found  the  Embankment  rather  depres- 
sing. The  company  does  not  seem  able  to 
forget  that  it  is  under  a  cloud.  It  is  down  and 
out;  it  refuses  to  be  proud  of  it.  I  am  not 
sure  that  the  coming  of  the  all-night  trams  has 
not  done  something  to  improve  this,  by  intro- 
ducing a  certain  bustle ;  but  at  the  same  time  it 
36 


On  Sleeping  Out 


has  diminished  the  chances  of  really  refreshing 
sleep,  chiefly  because  of  the  absurd  arrange- 
ment of  the  roadway,  by  which  groaning  Jug- 
gernauts are  made  to  rush  by  within  a  foot  of 
your  head.  The  police,  too,  have  always  been 
needlessly  officious  —  perhaps  as  being  under 
the  immediate  eye  of  New  Scotland  Yard. 
They  manage  these  things  better  in  New  York. 

There  are  three  very  good  sleeping-out  cen- 
tres in  New  York  —  Madison  Square,  Union 
Square,  and  City  Hall  Park.  They  are  strung, 
like  beads  on  a  rosary,  at  convenient  distances 
along  Broadway,  so  that  if  you  get  bored  in  the 
one,  it  is  not  too  far  to  stroll  along  to  another. 
There  are  other  possibilities,  of  course  —  the 
Bronx,  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  Cen- 
tral Park,  or  the  Battery.  But  they  are  too  far 
from  the  centre  of  things  to  be  convenient. 
Central  Park,  again,  is  too  lively  —  almost  as 
bad  as  Hyde  Park  —  and  there  is  something 
suburban  about  it  in  suggestion.  Personally, 
I  would  as  soon  sleep  out  on  Turnham  Green. 

Each  of  my  three  chosen  squares  has  its  pe- 
culiar advantages.  The  benches  of  all  alike 

37 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

are  well  designed,  with  backs  at  the  proper 
angle.  They  are  in  some  ways  better  than 
those  on  the  Embankment,  where,  if  you  hap- 
pen to  get  a  corner  seat,  there  is  an  unpleasantly 
sharp  metal  rim  to  the  arm  —  in  itself  too 
sloping  —  which  is  awkward  for  your  elbow. 
On  the  other  hand,  although  you  are  in  some 
danger  of  slipping  off,  the  London  design  fits 
the  small  of  the  back,  which  New  York  ignores. 
As  for  Paris,  you  might  as  well  try  to  sleep  on 
a  tombstone  for  any  comfort  you  will  get  out 
of  it. 

City  Hall  Park  is  lively,  Union  Square  is 
reposeful,  Madison  Square  faintly  aristocratic. 
City  Hall  Park  has  the  newspaper  offices,  and 
is  the  best  for  a  night  when  you  are  not  sleepy 
and  wish  to  be  amused.  My  favourite  pitch 
is  the  ring  of  benches  round  the  fountain  op- 
posite the  General  Post  Office.  In  hot  weather 
little  boys  abound  there,  who  use  the  basin  as 
an  open-air  swimming  bath  at  all  hours,  usually 
jumping  in  fully  dressed  —  for  what  it  implies 
—  and  having  pleasant  skirmishes  with  the  not 
too  officious  police.  The  east  side  of  Union 

38 


On  Sleeping  Out 


Square  is  quiet  and  well  wooded  —  excellent 
when  you  are  really  tired ;  Madison  Square,  for 
some  reason,  attracts  those  who  have  seen  bet- 
ter days.  My  last  bench  neighbour  there  was 
a  British  baronet,  and  dropped  his  aitches  like 
a  man.  All  three  are  open  and  free,  without 
annoying  railings  or  gates,  well  lighted  by 
strong  arc  lights,  with  drinking  fountains  handy 
and  lavatory  accommodation  fair  for  New 
York,  where  it  is,  generally  speaking,  abomi- 
nable. All  are  on  the  main  street-car  lines, 
which  run,  however,  discreetly  after  midnight, 
and  thus  are  cheerful  without  being  intrusive. 
The  company  is  delightful:  optimists  to  a 
man  and  woman.  I  have  talked  to  a  hoary 
patriarch  of,  I  suppose,  seventy-five.  He  said 
he  had  not  slept  in  a  bed  for  ten  years,  and  I 
believed  him.  Yet  his  whole  conversation  was 
on  the  best  location  for  a  motor  works.  He 
had  invented,  and  had  in  his  pocket,  an  entirely 
new  system  of  electrical  ignition  —  I  am  not  an 
expert  on  these  things  —  and  when  I  left  him 
he  was  figuring  out  the  precise  number  of  mil- 
lions he  would  make  when  the  factory  was 
39 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

working  at  its  full  capacity.  Every  one  has 
some  scheme  or  other,  and  is  quite  ready  to 
share  it  with  you.  The  last  time  I  slept  in 
Union  Square  I  was  offered  a  partnership  in 
one  which  I  believe  really  had  something  in  it. 
Some  of  the  Elevated  stations  up-town  are  high 
above  the  streets  over  which  they  run  —  espe- 
cially about  the  Cathedral  Parkway  —  and  they 
are  approached  from  the  roadway  by  long  iron 
staircases,  roofed  in,  so  as  almost  to  resemble 
tunnels.  My  neighbour's  idea  was  to  arrange 
a  private  company  of  three,  two  to  hold  up 
passengers  —  drunkards  preferred  —  on  their 
way  down  to  the  street,  the  third  to  keep  watch. 
The  working  hours  were  from  midnight  to 
four  in  the  morning  and  the  probable  returns 
magnificent.  I  did  not  accept  the  offer  —  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  before  I  had  really  time  to  con- 
sider it,  I  received  another,  which  struck  me  as 
more  promising,  though,  in  the  end,  I  did  not 
accept  that  either.  At  least  it  is  a  fact  that  I 
never  had  such  an  offer  on  the  Embankment; 
and  now  that  they  have  turned  it  into  a  sort  of 
annexe  to  the  casual  ward,  I  never  shall. 
40 


CHAPTER  III 

Thieves1  Kitchen 


FEW  things  have  made  me  realise  more 
fully  Man's  superiority  to  the  Beasts 
that  Perish  —  I  except  Chris  because 
he  is  my  friend  —  than  my  own  adaptability 
to  circumstances.  Granted  the  transportation 
of  a  lion  to  the  Arctic  Circle  and  I  am  ready 
to  believe  that  in  four  or  five  generations  he 
will  evolve  for  himself  the  fur,  claws  and  anat- 
omy of  a  walrus,  a  Polar  bear,  or  whatever 
other  beast  meets  him  half-way  upon  the  path 
towards  fitness.  Mankind,  if  I  am  any  ex- 
ample to  go  by,  would  reach  the  same  point  In 
four  or  five  days.  When  I  parted  company 
with  Mrs.  Isaacs  and  my  portmanteau  I  had 
all  the  prejudices  of  those  born  to  the  ringing 
of  bells,  as  compared  with  those  fated  to  the 
answering  of  them.  It  was  certainly  not  the 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

first  time  the  wolf  had  curled  himself  upon  my 
hearth-rug,  but  such  earlier  experiences  differed 
in  that  they  lacked  the  element  of  finality,  that 
in  every  case  the  certain  hope  remained  that 
either  by  coaxing  or  compulsion  the  wolf  could 
sooner  or  later  be  expelled.  But,  as  I  sat  on 
the  benches  of  Union  Square,  it  was  unpleas- 
antly brought  home  to  me  that  the  case  was 
altered.  Fortune,  at  whom  I  had  so  long 
made  faces,  was  showing  herself  suddenly  apt 
at  the  same  game.  No  longer  could  I  ring 
bells;  I  had  not  even  the  chance  of  answering 
them.  Not  only  was  I  hungry,  but  gazing 
ahead  I  could  see  nothing  but  an  eternity  of 
empty  stomachs.  I  was  become,  in  earnest,  the 
vagabond  I  had  sometime  played  at  being. 

Within  three  days  I  adapted  myself,  un- 
consciously, to  my  new  conditions.  I  gazed  at 
a  new  world  with  new  eyes  and  from  a  new 
angle.  No  longer  was  a  policeman  to  me  a 
henchman;  he  was  become  the  Giant  Corcoran, 
lord  of  dread  powers,  the  more  awful  that 
their  limits  were  to  me  unknown.  No  longer 
were  clean  faces  and  white  linen  the  normal 
42 


Thieves'  Kitchen 


setting  for  humanity;  they  were  mere  abstract 
ideas,  to  be  regarded  from  afar,  lacking  in  ac- 
tuality. I  lounged  upon  my  bench  as  though 
to  the  manner  born,  as  though  I  had  lounged 
there  for  long  centuries,  as  though  I  had  done 
nothing  else  this  side  the  Blue  Chamber  of 
which  Mr.  Maeterlinck  has  told  us.  Then  it 
was  that  the  Tempter  —  as  I  am  sure  he  would 
love  to  believe  himself  —  came  to  me. 

Not  an  hour  after  I  was  offered  the  chance 
of  holding-up  belated  passengers  on  the  Ele- 
vated came  my  introduction  to  the  thieves' 
kitchen.  I  was  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  bench 
nearest  the  central  arc-light.  I  was  sitting 
there  the  more  easily  to  read,  in  a  stray  copy 
of  the  Journal,  an  article  detailing  the  mil- 
lions paid  for  a  famous  blue  diamond,  reputed 
to  bring  bad  luck  to  its  possessor,  which  yet  had 
recently  changed  hands.  There  the  Tempter 
found  me.  He  was  a  small  man,  shabbily 
smart,  and  he  told  me  that  he  was  English. 
Then  he  sat  down  on  the  bench  beside  me  —  it 
was  a  little  after  three  in  the  morning  —  and 
we  chatted  together,  as  one  does  on  the 

43 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

benches  of  Union  Square,  without  any  formal 
introduction.  He  asked  me  several  questions. 
He  asked  me  if  I  was  English  and  up  against 
it,  and  I  said  I  was  both.  Then  he  asked  me  if 
I  would  like  to  make  some  money,  and  I  said 
there  was  nothing  I  should  like  better,  except 
to  have  some  given  me.  Then  he  asked  if  I 
was  a  University  man  and  I  said  yes,  but  not  of 
an  English  University,  only  German.  He  was 
a  little  disappointed  at  that,  I  could  see,  so  I 
told  him  that  I  had  a  cousin  who  was  at  Balliol 
and  who  often  let  me  speak  to  him.  That 
cheered  him  up  considerably  and  he  said  that  if 
I  liked  to  walk  with  him  as  far  as  Second  Ave- 
nue it  might  be  worth  while.  I  was  getting 
horribly  tired  of  my  own  company  by  that  time, 
so  I  went  gladly. 

We  went  into  a  saloon  just  off  the  avenue. 
We  went  in  through  the  Family  Entrance  and 
into  a  sort  of  lobby  lined  with  mirrors  and 
through  one  of  the  mirrors,  which  were  fitted 
so  neatly  together  that  you  couldn't  see  any 
doors,  into  a  little  private  room.  There  were 
two  ladies  and  two  gentlemen,  and  my  friend 
44 


Thieves'  Kitchen 


the  Tempter  introduced  me  to  one  of  the  gen- 
tlemen, whose  name  was  Mr.  Birmingham.  I 
am  not  using  real  names,  of  course,  but  they 
are  near  enough.  Mr.  Birmingham  was  what 
they  would  call  in  New  York  a  near-gentleman, 
so  near  that  you  could  scarcely  tell  the  differ- 
ence by  artificial  light.  He  was  a  good  fellow, 
too,  because  when  he  asked  me  what  I  would 
take  to  drink,  and  I  said  I  would  much  rather 
have  something  to  eat,  he  was  quite  nice  about 
it  and  sent  out  for  a  cold  lunch  of  sliced  sau- 
sages and  dill  pickles  and  crullers  and  things 
like  that,  and  very  glad  I  was  to  have  them. 
Meanwhile  he  introduced  me  to  his  friend, 
whose  name  was  O'Fallon  and  who  was  too 
shiny  to  be  quite  convincing,  and  to  the  two 
ladies,  who  only  had  given-names  and  for  some 
reason,  as  soon  as  I  spoke  to  them,  began  to 
laugh  until  they  cracked  their  complexions. 
One  of  them  was  rather  pretty  and  both  were 
more  fashionably  dressed  than  seemed  abso- 
lutely necessary.  However,  they  were  kind 
enough  to  say  that  I  was  some  boob,  or  Rube, 
I  am  not  quite  sure  which,  as  they  were  laugh- 
45 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

ing  so  much,  which  I  took  to  be  complimentary. 
Mr.  Birmingham,  also,  seemed  struck  with  my 
appearance  and  intimated  to  the  Tempter, 
whose  name  I  gathered  was  Tripper,  that  he 
thought  I  should  do.  Then  he  asked  me  what 
my  line  was  and  I  said  that  I  was  a  teetotaller, 
which  I  wasn't,  only  I  thought  it  seemed  an  ap- 
propriate thing  to  say  and  the  two  ladies 
laughed  more  than  ever  and  one  of  them  said 
that  I  was  great. 

Mr.  O'Fallon  for  some  reason  did  not  seem 
to  like  me.  He  was  rather  a  surly  person  who 
kept  on  muttering  to  himself  under  his  breath, 
and  at  last  beckoned  Mr.  Birmingham  out  of 
the  room,  leaving  me  alone  with  Mr.  Tripper 
and  the  ladies.  Mr.  Tripper  didn't  seem  very 
pleased  with  me  either,  I  thought.  He  whis- 
pered to  me  something  about  not  trying  to  put 
it  over  them  too  much,  or  something  of  that 
sort.  The  ladies  kept  on  laughing  all  the 
time.  They  were  very  merry  souls. 

When  Mr.  Birmingham  came  back  he  got 
right  down  to  business  at  once.  He  began  by 
asking  questions  about  my  past  career  and  fu- 

46 


Thieves*  Kitchen 


ture  prospects,  which  I  answered  as  untruth- 
fully as  was  possible  on  such  short  notice. 
Then  he  asked  if  I  had  ever  turned  my  thoughts 
towards  bunco-steering  or  the  green-goods 
game. 

I  do  not  know  if  it  is  necessary  to  explain 
that  bunco-steering  is  what  is  known  in  Eng- 
land as  the  confidence  trick,  and  is  worked  by 
forcing  your  acquaintance  on  a  complete  and 
guileless  stranger  and  so  gaining  his  confidence 
in  one  of  many  ways,  that  you  induce  him  to 
hand  over  to  you  all  his  valuables,  wherewith 
you  then  decamp.  You  may  see  it  in  operation 
almost  any  day  in  or  about  the  big  Strand  hotels 
where  Americans  mostly  congregate.  For 
some  reason  Americans  seem  about  the  only 
people  ever  taken  in  by  it.  I  am  sure  I  don't 
know  why. 

The  green-goods  game  consists  in  selling  or 
pretending  to  sell  forged  United  States  bank- 
notes — "  green-backs,"  whence  the  name  —  to 
persons  with  more  greed  than  honesty.  Of 
course  you  profess  to  be  able  to  supply  them 
very  much  under  the  usual  rates  —  ten  cents  on 

47 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

the  dollar  is,  I  think,  customary.  Equally,  of 
course,  you  haven't  any  forged  banknotes  to 
sell  at  all,  and  you  simply  trick  your  customer 
out  of  his  money.  The  ingenious  part  of  the 
"  game  "  is  that,  having  himself  embarked  in 
a  criminal  business,  he  dare  not  afterwards 
prosecute  you,  and  with  any  luck  you  can  make 
further  sums  out  of  him  in  the  way  of  black- 
mail. As  you  will  understand,  an  appearance 
and  manner  of  virtuous  guilelessness  is  of  great 
value  in  either  of  these  "  games,"  and  I  there- 
fore felt  that  Mr.  Birmingham's  question  was 
distinctly  flattering. 

He  went  on  to  point  the  moral  by  saying 
that  being  large  and  fat  and  fair,  with  a  stupid 
face  and  an  expression  of  blank  idiocy,  it  struck 
him  that  Nature  had  cut  me  out  for  either  — 
especially  the  first.  I  said  that  I  had  heard  of 
them,  but  was  not  fully  familiar  with  their  de- 
tails. He  explained  them  to  me  carefully  and 
added  that  if  I  took  a  hand  in  either  I  might 
very  soon  expect  to  attain  a  high  position.  At 
first  I  should  have  to  start  in  a  humbler  ca- 
pacity, merely  to  watch-out,  when  a  game  was 
48 


Thieves'  Kitchen 


in  progress  and  make  myself  familiar  with  the 
faces  of  the  slops  who  might  be  dangerous. 
Even  so,  he  said,  there  was  more  dough  to  be 
made  in  a  week  than  I  could  expect  to  earn  in 
any  other  way  in  a  year,  supposing  I  ever  man- 
aged to  earn  anything  at  all  in  New  York. 
One  thing  only  I  must  remember  —  and  remem- 
ber always.  Obedience  to  orders  —  obedience 
and  again  obedience. 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  I  should  not  have 
accepted  the  suggestion,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
presence  of  the  ladies.  As  it  was,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  I  should  probably  be  expected  to  be 
on  friendly  terms  with  them  and,  somehow,  I 
didn't  feel  like  it.  I  doubted,  too,  whether  I 
could  ever  really  become  intimate  with  Mr. 
O'Fallon.  So  I  said  I  should  like  to  think  it 
over  a  little  first.  I  said  it  with  a  certain  diffi- 
dence, because  I  had  visions,  gained  chiefly 
from  the  perusal  of  light  literature,  of  being 
told  to  hold  my  hands  up,  knocked  on  the  head, 
and  dropped  down  a  drain  through  a  trap-door 
opening  somewhere  behind  the  fireplace. 
Nothing  of  the  sort  occurred.  Mr.  Tripper 

49 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

looked  as  if  he  was  very  sorry  and  Mr.  O'Fal- 
lon  looked  as  if  he  was  very  glad,  and  the  two 
ladies  laughed  until  the  colour  began  to  drop 
off  their  eyelashes,  and  Mr.  Birmingham  said 
that  he  could  quite  understand  how  I  felt  and 
that  I  could  find  him  there  any  evening  when  I 
had  made  up  my  mind.  Then  we  shook  hands 
all  round  and  I  left  them. 

That  was  my  only  real  experience  of  profes- 
sional criminality  in  New  York,  and  I  feel  my- 
self that  it  was  more  than  a  little  disappoint- 
ing. If  there  had  been  only  a  pass-word  or 
two,  or  a  few  oaths  of  inevitable  vengeance  if 
I  played  the  part  of  traitor,  I  should  have  liked 
it  better.  But  there  was  nothing  of  the  sort, 
nor  did  I  see  so  much  as  one  revolver 
(technically  known  as  "  gun  "),  nor  any  masks, 
nor,  indeed,  any  of  the  properly  romantic  ac- 
cessories of  crime.  My  friend  Dempsey,  who 
as  a  policeman  himself  should  know  something 
about  it,  told  me  later,  when  I  discussed  it  with 
him,  that  Mr.  Birmingham  was  probably 
brother-in-law  to  an  Alderman  and  hand-5n- 
glove  with  the  superior  officers  of  the  police- 

50 


Thieves'  Kitchen 


force  and  that,  did  I  attempt  to  betray  them  I 
should  very  likely  be  knocked  on  the  head,  not 
by  the  Criminal  Band,  but  by  a  police-lieutenant 
on  a  charge  of  D.  and  D.  It  is  true  that 
Dempsey  is  something  of  a  cynic  and  may  have 
exaggerated.  I  only  know  that  such  was  my 
introduction  to  the  World  of  Crime  and  that 
if  it  is  lacking  in  romantic  features  it  is  not  my 
fault. 

I  had  no  regrets,  for  I  got  a  square,  if  indi- 
gestible meal,  out  of  it  all,  and  just  then  I 
wanted  one  rather  badly. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  "Cop"  and  the  "Copper" 

I  FIRST  met  Dempsey  —  as  I  will  call 
him  —  when  I  was  looking  for  the 
Bread  Line.  I  had  heard  of  it  as  offer- 
ing the  chance  of  something  to  eat,  but  I  did 
not  know  its  whereabouts.  It  was  the  second 
day  after  my  interview  with  Mr.  Birmingham 
and  I  happened  to  pass  Dempsey,  who  was  reg- 
ulating the  traffic  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Union  Square  and  I  asked  him.  Broad- 
way belies  its  name  at  that  point  and  the  traf- 
fic was  very  heavy,  but  he  found  time  to  smile 
amiably,  to  ask  me  if  I  was  up  against  it, 
and  to  lend  me  a  pin,  which  I  wanted  urgently 
as  I  was  unprovided  with  serviceable  braces. 
Afterwards,  in  the  intervals  of  dragging  old 
ladies  from  under  the  wheels  of  street  cars,  he 
found  more  time  to  cheer  me  up,  which  I 
52 


The  "Cop"  and  the  "Copper" 

needed  badly,  to  lend  me  fifty  cents,  which  I 
needed  more,  and  to  tell  me  of  a  man  who  kept 
a  delicatessen  store  on  Sixth  Avenue,  and  who 
needed  an  assistant.  Officer  Dempsey  thought 
that  if  I  said  he  had  sent  me,  and  that  I  could 
speak  German,  I  might  get  the  job.  I  did  get 
it,  and  very  interesting  it  proved,  though  that 
is  beside  the  point  for  the  present. 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  say  that  the  New 
York  police  force  spends  all  its  time  in  prac- 
tising active  benevolence  towards  needy  foreign 
vagabonds,  but  this  story  happens  to  be  true 
—  and  I  have  met  nothing  like  it  in  London, 
Paris,  Berlin,  or  Constantinople.  No  doubt 
Dempsey  is  an  exceptional  man;  possibly  he 
judged  that  I  was  not  quite  such  a  hobo  as  I 
looked;  at  least  to  me  he  typifies  the  whole 
splendid  force  of  which  he  is  a  member.  And 
I  never  read  a  little  ha'penny  press  attack  upon 
that  force  without  wishing  to  mobilise  a  few 
corner-boys,  toughs  and  gunmen,  and  to  make  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  particular  office  from  which 
it  originates.  There  is  only  one  other  police- 
man with  whom  it  is  not  an  insult  to  compare 

53 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

the  New  York  "  cop  " —  the  London  "  cop- 
per,"—  and  the  comparison  is  not  altogether  to 
the  American's  disadvantage. 

I  suppose  it  is  because  the  Police  Universal 
sees  so  much  of  the  realities  that  it  is  ubiqui- 
tously benevolent,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes. 
The  policeman  of  Paris  is  benevolent  and  ineffi- 
cient; in  Berlin,  he  is  benevolent  —  yes,  really 
—  and  officious ;  in  Constantinople,  benevolent 
and  a  fatalist;  in  London,  benevolent  and  a 
snob;  in  New  York,  benevolent  and  a  gentle- 
man. Given  two  drunken  seafarers  fighting 
in  the  street  who  refuse  to  desist  when  chal- 
lenged, the  Paris  policeman  will  pretend  not  to 
see  them;  the  Berlin  policeman  will  ring  up  a 
regiment  of  Uhlans;  he  of  Constantinople  will 
shrug  his  shoulders,  cry  aloud  "  Is  this  the  will 
of  Allah?  "  and  proceed  upon  his  beat  with  dig- 
nified aloofness.  London  and  New  York  will 
alike  arrest  the  combatants,  or  a  dozen  of  them, 
single-handed,  but  London  will  consider 
whether  they  are  admirals  or  deck-hands,  and 
only  use  his  truncheon  in  the  latter  case;  New 
York  will  hammer  either  with  equal  joy.  In 
54 


The  "Cop"  and  the  "Copper" 

other  words,  if  you  are  unwillingly  ragged  be- 
yond reason,  London  will  arrest  you  for  inde- 
cency; New  York  will  lend  you  three  pins  and 
a  piece  of  string.  I  can  vouch  for  this,  because 
at  a  time  when  I  only  possessed  one  pair  of 
trousers,  and  they  split  —  but  I  need  not  go 
into  that.  I  do  not  blame  London ;  the  police- 
man merely  honours  the  spirit  of  his  nation; 
but  so  it  is. 

Granted,  as  I  honestly  believe,  that  the  New 
York  "  cop  "  is,  man  to  man,  so  nearly  on  an 
equality  with  his  London  brother,  why  is  it  that 
he  gets  all  the  kicks  and  his  brother  all  the 
ha'pence?  Simply  because  the  Londoner  is 
well  officered,  well  supported,  and  sufficiently 
numerous;  the  New  Yorker  is  none  of  these 
things.  He  suffers  for  the  faults  of  his  bet- 
ters. I  say  this,  not  on  my  own  authority,  but 
on  the  strength  of  many  facts,  which  I  have 
seen  and  noted,  and  upon  which  Dempsey  and 
his  colleagues  have  commented  with  refreshing 
frankness,  in  my  hearing. 

There  are  at  least  as  many  —  Dempsey  says 
twice  as  many  —  criminals  of  the  lowest  type 

55 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

in  New  York  as  in  London,  Paris,  and  Berlin 
put  together.  I  do  not  remember  the  exact 
figures,  but  there  are  fewer  policemen  in  New 
York  than  in  either.  The  "  scum  of  South- 
eastern Europe,"  as  President  Wilson  truth- 
fully and  rashly  called  them  —  and  thereby 
risked  a  heavy  loss  of  support  during  the  re- 
cent presidential  campaign  —  arrive  in  New 
York  year  after  year  in  ever-increasing  num- 
bers, and  stay  there.  The  police  force  remains 
stationary,  or  nearly  so.  What  is  more,  the 
policeman  runs  serious  danger  in  arresting 
them,  not  from  them  but  from  his  superiors. 
The  magistracy  is  selected  by  and  subservient 
to  certain  corrupt  politicians  of  Albany  and 
New  York,  whose  personal  retinue,  for  election 
and  other  purposes,  is  largely  composed  of 
gunmen  and  foreign  criminals  generally.  Ar- 
rest a  notorious  criminal  in  the  act,  and  as  often 
as  not,  though  you  bring  fifty  witnesses  of  un- 
impeachable standing,  he  will  be  acquitted 
without  a  stain  on  his  character.  Let  me 
again  emphasise  that  these  words  are  not  my 
own,  that  the  facts  may  not  be  as  Dempsey 

56 


The  "Cop"  and  the  "Copper" 

believed.     At  least  they  are  as  he  told  them 
to  me. 

Such  a  state  of  things  does  not  induce  effi- 
ciency. Neither  does  the  existence  of  the 
Mayor  —  as  Mayors  are  understood  in  New 
York.  It  is  perhaps  worst  when  the  Mayor  is 
a  politician;  it  is  very  little  better  when  he  is 
a  reformer,  which  is  to  say  a  crank.  In  my 
time  he  was  a  senile  person  called  Gaynor, 
with  an  itch  for  popularity  and  designs  on  the 
Presidency  which,  I  am  happy  to  think,  came 
to  nothing.  In  the  case  of  any  law  which  he 
thought  unpopular  he  had  a  pleasant  little 
habit  of  writing  to  the  papers  to  the  effect  that 
he  hoped  the  police  would  turn  their  blind  eyes 
towards  any  breach  of  it.  And  the  Mayor  has 
more  power  over  the  police  than  has  any  Chief 
Commissioner.  New  York  again,  in  common 
with  the  rest  of  America,  is  ridiculously  over- 
lawed  —  with  absurd  little  laws  that  are  merely 
vexatious  and  do  no  good  to  anybody.  Any 
crank  with  money  and  influence  —  which  is  the 
same  thing  —  at  Albany,  the  State  Capital,  can 
get  any  measure  passed  that  he  pleases  —  if  he 

57 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

will  but  pay  enough.  Most  of  such  laws  are, 
of  course,  unworkable  and  unworked;  they  are 
nevertheless  included,  which  is  to  say  confused, 
with  those  really  necessary  to  the  public  safety 
and  convenience.  The  unhappy  policeman  has 
always  to  consider  whether  in  enforcing  the 
written  law  he  may  not  be  breaking  one  unwrit- 
ten. I  would  not  be  a  New  York  Policeman 
for  a  very  great  deal ;  I  would  very  much  rather 
borrow  money  from  him. 

Of  the  immediately  superior  officers,  cap- 
tains, lieutenants  and  the  rest,  we  have  been 
recently  hearing  so  much  that  I  need  say  little 
about  them.  I  do  not  believe  —  neither  does 
Dempsey,  who  knows  what  he  is  talking  about 
—  that  the  great  majority  of  them  are  more 
corrupt  than  other  men.  Only  —  they  all  hap- 
pen to  be  human  beings,  and  some  of  them  no 
doubt  inherit  their  first  ancestor's  little  weak- 
nesses. We,  after  all,  have  had  our  own 
Piccadilly  police  scandals  —  and  there  are  fifty 
Piccadillys  in  New  York,  forty  or  so  concen- 
trated in  the  one  Tenderloin  district.  Do 
away  with  your  politicians,  your  aldermen,  your 
58 


people  with  a  pull,  and  especially  your  cranks, 
and  there  will  be  no  need  to  talk  of  reforming 
the  New  York  Police.  The  "  cop  "  is  drawn 
from  much  the  same  class  as  is  the  "  copper." 
He  is  better  educated;  he  has  similar  ideas  of 
duty  and  he  is  as  efficient  to  carry  them  out. 
Give  him  half  a  chance  and  he  will  make 
Heaven  —  even  out  of  New  York. 

I  know  that  this  digression  has  little  to  do 
with  my  own  vagabondage;  but  we  hear  so 
much,  especially  of  course  in  England,  of 
Dempsey's  deficiencies  and  those  of  his  officers 
that  it  seems  only  fair  to  remember  that  there 
is  another  side  to  the  picture.  Whether  or  no, 
I  am  sure  of  one  thing:  if  Dempsey  dies  before 
I  do,  when  I  arrive  in  Purgatory  I  shall  find 
him  there,  directing  the  traffic,  and  I  shall  trust 
myself  to  his  care  with  absolute  confidence  that 
he  will  shepherd  me  safely  past  the  Infernal 
trap-doors.  What  is  more,  he  will  be  pro- 
moted Upstairs  millions  of  years  before  most 
of  those  who  now  sit  in  judgment  upon  him. 


59 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Free  and  Enlightened 


SO  far  as  I  was  ever  an  earnest  politician, 
in  New  York  or  elsewhere,  I  became 
one  through  eating  too  much  canned 
—  or,  as  we  should  say,  tinned  —  asparagus. 
It  came  about  through  my  gaining  the  post  of 
assistant  to  Mr. —  I  will  call  him  Cholmondely, 
though  his  real  name  was  very  much  more 
British  and  aristocratic  —  who  kept  a  deli- 
catessen store  on  Sixth  Avenue,  above  Forty- 
second  Street.  My  friend  Dempsey,  when  he 
recommended  me,  told  me  that  Mr.  Chol- 
mondely was  a  tightwad  —  and  he  was.  He 
was  an  interesting  combination,  even  for  New 
York.  His  mother  was  Greek  —  a  descendant 
of  the  Byzantine  Emperors,  as  is  every  Greek 
in  New  York;  his  father  was  German  —  a  de- 
scendant of  the  Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa, 

60 


The  Free  and  Enlightened 


as  is  every  German  in  New  York;  and  he  was  a 
Jew,  and  his  name  was  Cholmondely,  as  I  have 
said.  He  knew,  because  Dempsey  told  him, 
that  I  was  "  up  against  it."  Dempsey  lent  me 
fifty  cents,  and  it  is  always  a  pleasure  to  me  to 
remember  that  however  much  I  owed  when  I 
left  New  York  I  repaid  him.  Out  of  it  I  spent 
ten  cents  on  getting  my  shoes  polished,  for 
dandy.  It  was  really  only  five  cents,  but  it  was 
so  long  since  I  had  had  any  money  in  my  pocket 
that  I  slipped  the  guy  a  nickel  —  as  we  should 
say  on  the  benches  of  Union  Square  —  as  a  tip, 
and  the  accession  of  self-respect  was  worth  it. 
Then  I  spent  twenty-five  cents  on  two  collars 

—  one  must  take  some  luggage  on  engaging 
new  lodgings ;  and  ten  cents  on  a  shave  —  the 
barber  called  it  a  hair-cut  and  wanted  fifteen 

—  so  that  I  had  exactly  a  nickel  left  when  I 
took  up  my  new  position. 

I  hoped  that  Mr.  Cholmondely  would  ad- 
vance me  something  on  my  first  week's  salary, 
but  he  was  of  another  opinion.  If  I  had  man- 
aged to  live  so  long  without,  he  thought  I 
could  last  out  another  week  and  be  spared  the 

61 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

mortification  of  having  to  pay  more  than  my 
salary  back  before  I  got  it;  which  was  log- 
ical enough.     He  liked  the  look  of  me,  though, 
as  he  was  kind  enough  to  say,  and  he  let  me 
live  on  the  surplus  stock,  on  credit,  for  the  first 
week.     I  spent  my  nickel  on  a  loaf  of  bread, 
very   good   but   painfully   dear,    and   I   made 
good  on  the   surplus   stock.     It  consisted   of 
canned  asparagus  and  sardines.     If  I  live  to  be 
a  hundred  I  never  wish  to  see  either  of  them 
again.     They  were  bad  enough  separately;  on 
the  Thursday,  having  finished  my  loaf,  I  tried 
them  together.     On  the  Friday  a  dear  little 
pantomime  lady,  who  was  engaged  at  a  vaude- 
ville house  in  the  next  block,  said  that  for  a  fat 
man  I  was  the  hungriest-looking  boob  she  had 
ever  seen  and  asked  me  to  have  a  sandwich 
with  her.     I  had  six  and  without  shame ;  I  told 
Mr.  Cholmondely  next  morning  that  she  was 
a  principal,  and  that  her  credit  was  good,  and 
it  passed  off  all  right.     I  have  nothing  against 
Mr.  Cholmondely;  he  allowed  me  to  sleep  in 
the  space  behind  the  counter  for  the  first  week. 
I  think  it  was  harder,  but  it  was  very  much  more 
62 


The  Free  and  Enlightened 


respectable  than  a  bench  on  Union,  or  even  on 
Madison,  Square. 

It  was  through  Dempsey< — my  good  angel 
—  that  I  became  a  politician,  though  I  honestly 
think  I  should  have  held  back  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  asparagus. 

I  was  alone  in  the  store  when  Mr.  Hawes 
came  in.  I  had  never  before  seen  anybody 
who  looked  so  prosperous.  He  had  a  big 
black  moustache  and  a  smile,  a  corporation,  a 
diamond  bosom-pin,  and  a  cigar.  He  shook 
hands  with  me  quite  warmly  and  said  he  was 
glad  to  meet  me.  If  you  only  knew  what  that 
meant  to  me  1  Then  he  said  I  was  English.  I 
hadn't  had  a  chance  to  say  a  word,  so  I  asked 
him  how  he  knew.  He  said,  because  I  dropped 
my  aitches.  Englishmen  always  did.  Then  to 
my  surprise  he  ticked  me  off  in  a  little  note-book 
and  said  that  my  name  was  provisionally  Alf 
Cohnstamm,  a  native  of  Paterson,  New  Jersey, 
and  that  I  was  to  call  at  O'Keefe's  cafe  on 
Avenue  A  when  I  was  sent  for. 

He  was  just  bustling  off  when,  I  suppose, 
something  in  the  voice  with  which  I  thanked 

63 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

him  struck  him  as  unusual.  He  looked  at  me 
rather  queerly  and  asked  me  if  I  were  a  smart 
Aleck.  I  said  that  I  did  not  know;  that,  from 
my  name  I  imagined  myself  to  be  of  Jewish 
descent.  He  still  looked  a  little  annoyed,  so  I 
smiled  at  him,  and  he  relented  and  asked  me  if 
Mr.  Cholmondely  had  not  made  me  wise.  I 
said  that  he  had  done  his  best  —  and  that  was 
really  true,  so  far  as  the  delicatessen  trade 
goes.  Mr.  Hawes  put  his  head  on  one  side 
and  shook  hands  again,  quite  warmly.  They 
have  a  perfect  mania  for  shaking  hands  in 
America.  I  have  been  told  —  though  I  do  not 
know  it  for  an  actual  fact  —  that  as  soon  as  you 
are  born  you  celebrate  the  occasion  by  shaking 
hands  with  the  accoucheur  and  that,  if  you  are 
unlucky  enough  to  be  executed  for  murder  — 
which  you  are  not  unless  you  are  very  unlucky 
indeed  —  you  first  shake  hands  with  the  elec- 
trician and  the  governor  and  the  chaplain  and 
the  warders  and  the  newspaper  men,  and  tell 
them  to  be  sure  and  drop  in  whenever  they  are 
passing.  Anyway,  Mr.  Hawes  shook  hands 
64 


I  was  to  call  at  O'Keefe's  cafe  when  I  was  sent  for. 


The  Free  and  Enlightened 


with  me  twice  and  then,  when  he  had  already 
got  as  far  as  the  door,  came  back  and  shook 
hands  for  the  third  time  and  said  that  I  had 
got  to  quit  kicking  his  dawg  aroun',  and  that  I 
was  a  bright-eyed  mother's  darling,  and  then 
the  bosom-pin  steered  the  cigar  out  on  to  the 
sidewalk. 

When  the  chance  came  I  asked  Mr.  Chol- 
mondely  about  it,  and  he  told  me  that  mein  roll 
was  not  zhick  zat  it  might  not  be  zhicker,  and 
zat  ze  old  Tiger  was  gut  enough  for  him  and 
for  me,  too. 

A  week  later  I  was  summoned  to  Mr. 
O'Keefe's  cafe.  Mr.  O'Keefe  was  rather  a 
bigger  edition  of  Mr.  Hawes,  which  was  only 
natural,  as  he  was  a  shade  nearer  the  rose. 
His  moustache  and  his  smile  and  his  corpora- 
tion and  his  bosom-pin  and  his  cigar  were  all  a 
shade  bigger  and  ranker,  and  he  told  me  that  I 
was  a  Democrat.  I  liked  him  at  once,  because 
he  had  bulgy  purple  eyes  that  looked  as  if  it 
was  only  by  the  exercise  of  marvellous  self- 
restraint  that  they  did  not  jump  out  of  his  head, 

65  ' 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

and  reminded  me  of  Chris,  whom  I  was  long- 
ing to  see  again,  only  the  fare  to  the  Bronx 
was  five  cents. 

Mr.  O'Keefe  poured  me  out  a  chaser  as  he 
told  me  that  I  was  a  Democrat  and  he  went  on 
to  say,  with  a  chaser  between  each  paragraph, 
that  I  was  a  fervent  believer  in 

Smith  for  Mayor 

And  Jones  for  State  Attorney 

And  some  one  else  for  something  else. 

And  so  were  Mr.  Breitstein 

And  Mr.  Tuchverderber 

And  Mr.  Letztergrosschen 

And  Mr.  Mavrogordato 

And  Mr.  Ferrati 

And  quite  a  number  of  other  people 

And  that  I  was  all  of  them 

And  that  we  were  worth  three  dollars  each 
for  being  what  we  were  —  a  trifle  under  the 
usual  rates  because  a  large  batch  of  emigrants 
had  arrived  a  few  days  before  and  depressed 
the  market. 

Between  surprise  and  the  chasers  and  the 
66 


The  Free  and  Enlightened 


memory  of  the  canned  asparagus   I  believed 
everything  that  he  told  me. 

In  due  course  Mr.  Breitstein  and  Mr.  Fer- 
rati  and  Mr.  Mavrogordato  and  the  rest  of  me 
all  recorded  our  votes  for  Smith  and  Jones  and 
the  rest  of  the  ticket.  Incidentally,  we  made 
quite  a  lot  of  money  out  of  our  refusal  to  bolt, 
and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  remain  a  Democrat 
for  the  rest  of  my  life,  or  until  the  Republican 
rates  became  a  shade  less  niggardly.  I  was 
glad  of  the  money  because,  just  about  then,  Mr. 
Cholmondely  and  I  parted  company  and,  until 
I  got  a  job  with  the  "  movies  "  a  month  later 
I  was  rather  badly  unemployed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Business  is  Business 


YOU  have  to  pay  ten  cents  in  New 
York  for  a  chicken  sandwich,  and  it 
is  usually  made  of  turkey.  You 
pay  five  cents  for  a  ham  sandwich,  and  you 
have  no  idea  what  it  is  made  of.  I  was  in  the 
delicatessen  trade  in  New  York  for  three  weeks 
—  and  I  have  my  suspicions.  For  twenty-five 
cents  you  can  have  a  club  sandwich.  That  is 
made  of  toast  and  chicken-turkey  and  bacon,  all 
hot  and  very  good.  It  is  well  worth  the  extra 
expense,  because  the  smell  of  the  bacon  dis- 
guises that  of  the  chicken.  American  bacon  is 
not  good;  it  is  nearly  always  sold  in  glass  bot- 
tles, as  we  sell  jam,  which  prevents  its  getting 
away.  I  prefer  its  flavour  to  that  of  delicates- 
sen chicken,  however,  because  I  was  in  a  hos- 
pital once  and  I  hate  being  reminded  of  it. 

68 


Business  is  Business 


There  are  as  many  delicatessen  stores  in 
New  York  as  there  are  wine-shops  in  Paris  or 
tailors  in  the  City  of  London.  To  millions  of 
good  New  Yorkers  the  most  dazzling  kind  of 
orgy  is  to  spend  the  evening  in  a  cinema  theatre, 
which  costs  five  cents,  and  then  go  to  a  delicates- 
sen store  and  have  a  ham  sandwich.  For  the 
rest  of  the  week  you  live  upon  dill  pickles. 
Dill  pickles  are  what  we  call  gherkins,  and  they 
are  far  and  away  the  most  popular  article  of 
food  in  New  York.  You  can  get  one  for  a 
cent;  a  really  big  and  juicy  one,  which  will  do 
you  for  breakfast,  with  a  bit  over  for  lunch, 
costs  two  cents.  The  people  of  New  York  are 
simple  and  long  suffering;  the  existence  of  the 
delicatessen  store  is  the  proof  of  it.  In  no 
other  trade  in  the  world  can  you  make  so  large 
a  profit  with  so  little  ruth.  I  should  be  in  the 
trade  now  —  and  perhaps  a  millionaire  —  if  it 
had  not  been  for  a  chicken. 

They  sell  chickens  by  the  barrel  in  New 
York  —  wholesale,  I  mean  —  for  much  the  same 
reason  that  they  sell  bacon  in  bottles.  I  was 
keeping  store  one  day  when  Mr.  Cholmondely 

69 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

came  in  in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  He  had 
just  heard  of  three  barrels  of  chickens  to  be 
got  at  a  bargain.  They  belonged  to  a  big 
storekeeper,  in  a  fashionable  district  up-town, 
who  had  quarrelled  that  morning  with  the  In- 
spectors' Association  —  of  which  I  will  tell  you 
more  in  a  minute.  As  the  result,  they  had  to 
be  sold  at  once,  after  being,  I  dare  say,  ten 
years  in  the  family,  and  considered  heirlooms. 
Mr.  Cholmondely  was  anxious  to  get  them  be- 
fore rival  traders  could  hear  of  them.  He 
didn't  want  to  appear  in  the  deal  himself  for 
political  reasons,  so  I  was  to  rush  up  at  once 
and  secure  them.  I  forget  the  actual  figures, 
but  supposing  the  market  price  in  the  ordinary 
way  would  have  been  twenty  dollars,  I  was  to 
give  three.  It  took  me  four  hours  bargaining 
and  two  interviews  with  the  local  Rabbi,  but  in 
the  end  I  got  them  for  three  dollars  and  fifty 
cents,  and  Mr.  Cholmondely  very  kindly  of- 
fered to  share  half  the  loss  with  me.  He 
even  said  he  was  pleased  with  me,  and  he 
showed  it.  I  asked  him  if  he  would  let  me 
have  a  little  money;  I  said  I  wanted  to  buy  a 

70 


Business  is  Business 


collar.  He  wouldn't  give  me  any  money,  be- 
cause he  said  New  York  was  full  of  tempta- 
tions, but  he  very  kindly  offered  me  the  loan  of 
a  used  collar  of  his  own,  which  he  thought 
would  pass  for  another  day  or  two  if  I  chalked 
it  over  in  places ;  and  when  we  found  it  wouldn't 
fit,  he  said  I  could  take  as  much  packing  paper 
or  string  as  was  needed  to  eke  it  out  and  pay 
nothing. 

There  never  was  such  a  busy  afternoon  as 
we  had  when  those  chickens  arrived.  It  meant 
no  end  of  arithmetical  calculations  to  start 
with,  because  to  the  cost  of  the  chickens  you 
had  to  add  that  of  the  chemicals,  then  to  de- 
duct the  share  of  the  value  of  those  chickens 
that  were  so  irretrievably  gone  that  they  could 
only  be  used  for  sausages  or  club  sandwiches, 
next  add  the  percentage  of  the  inspector's  fee, 
and  finally  average  the  whole  thing  over  each 
chicken.  We  worked  it  out  at  a  little  over  450 
per  cent,  profit. 

We  were  in  the  middle  of  adapting  the 
chickens  to  their  new  life;  I  was  wearing  the 
oxygen  mask  and  coaxing  them  out  of  the  bar- 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

rels,  and  Mr.  Cholmondely  standing  by  with  a 
club  in  case  they  turned  nasty  and  attacked  me, 
when  the  inspector  came  in.  It  worried  me  for 
the  moment,  and  I  wondered  whether  my  em- 
ployer would  try  to  pass  the  barrels  off  as  a 
soap-works  or  patent  manure  or  something. 
He  didn't,  though.  He  handed  the  inspector  a 
cigar,  calculated  to  dominate  even  those  chick- 
ens, and  asked  him  to  wait  a  bit.  When  he 
was  ready  he  got  a  ten-dollar  bill  out  of  the 
cash  register  and  handed  it  to  him,  and  the  in- 
spector walked  out.  Mr.  Cholmondely  ex- 
plained to  me  afterwards  how  these  things  are 
done  in  New  York.  There  is  an  association 
of  dishonest  traders  and  another  of  dishonest 
inspectors  —  Inspectors  of  Nuisances  I  sup- 
pose we  should  call  them  over  here  —  who 
regulate  the  amount  of  graft  to  be  paid  for 
each  visit.  (I  don't  mean  to  imply  that  there 
are  no  honest  traders  or  honest  inspectors 
either  —  but  Mr.  Cholmondely  did  not  tell  me 
about  them.  He  was  not  interested  in  them.) 
In  my  time  it  worked  out  at  ten  dollars  a  visit, 

72 


Business  is  Business 


which  was  very  moderate,  considering  that  the 
trader  can  do  anything  he  chooses  in  the  way  of 
selling  rotten  food,  besides  getting  valuable 
hints  as  to  the  best  kinds  of  preservatives  and 
anti-stink  chemicals  and  so  on.  If  there  is  any 
dispute  the  associations  settle  it,  and  their  word 
is  final.  If  an  inspector  kicks  he  is  bounced, 
and  if  a  trader  does  he  is  prosecuted,  and  the 
newspapers  marvel  over  the  efficiency  with 
which  the  people  of  New  York  are  protected 
from  the  dangers  of  bad  food.  The  system 
works  admirably,  and  on  the  very  few  occasions 
it  has  broken  down  it  has  been  almost  entirely 
due  to  the  mistakes  of  new  assistants  fresh  from 
Europe,  who  do  not  understand  business. 
For  which  reason  Mr.  Cholmondely  explained 
that  if  ever  a  would-be  assistant  told  him  he 
was  an  honest  man,  he  turned  him  down  at  once. 
He  did  not  believe  in  taking  risks,  he  said.  I 
felt  quite  glad  it  had  not  occurred  to  me  to  lie 
to  him. 

We  parted  in  the  end  over  those  same  chick- 
ens.    Mr.  Cholmondely  wanted  me  to  take  out 

73 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

part  of  my  salary  in  club  sandwiches,  which  he 
said  I  could  eat  at  any  time,  and  so  not  waste 
time  over  my  meals.  I  had  turned  vegetarian 
by  that  time,  and  so  I  left. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Among  the  ff Movies" 


I  SUPPOSE  there  must  be  at  least  twice 
as  many  British  baronets  in  New  York 
as  in  London.  I  have  foregathered 
with  three  in  one  night  on  the  benches  of  Mad- 
ison Square,  where  they  mostly  sleep.  I  have 
been  told,  though  I  cannot  vouch  for  this,  that 
on  any  fine  afternoon  hundreds  of  them  may  be 
seen  in  the  Central  Park  Zoo,  hungrily  looking 
on  while  the  animals  are  fed.  In  comparison, 
the  sprinkling  of  honourables  is  but  small,  and 
in  all  my  experience  I  met  with  but  one  peer. 
He  was,  when  in  employment,  a  collector  for 
worthy  causes,  and  he  frankly  admitted  that  his 
title  was  only  assumed  for  philanthropic  pur- 
poses. Next  to  the  baronet  the  army  captain 
holds  pride  of  place.  He  has  invariably 
served  either  in  the  Guards  or  the  Lancers.  I 

75 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

never  met  a  British  officer  of  any  other  grade 
or  arm  sleeping  out,  though  I  was  for  a  few 
days  on  intimate  terms  with  a  field-marshal, 
who  practised,  I  was  told  later,  what  would  in 
London  be  known  as  the  "  kinchin  lay  " —  steal- 
ing nickels  from  small  children  who  had  been 
sent  on  errands.  He  was,  however,  only  a 
Cuban,  and  it  was  doubted  in  our  set  whether 
he  really  had  the  right  to  any  rank  higher  than 
General. 

When  the  New  York  press  caricatures,  in- 
tentionally or  otherwise,  the  British  aristocrat, 
it  always  represents  him  as  being  prejudiced 
against  the  letter  "  H."  So  widespread  is  this 
belief  that  when  the  Duke  of  Connaught,  some 
time  since,  visited  New  York,  those  notabilities 
who  saw  any  prospect  of  being  presented  to 
him  spent  hours  beforehand  practising  aitch- 
lessness,  with  the  kindly  desire  to  make  him 
feel  thoroughly  at  home.  If  you  had  met  as 
many  exiled  British  baronets  as  I  have,  you 
would  understand  the  origin  of  this  belief. 
When  for  a  time  I  assumed  a  baronetcy  I 
never  could  understand  why  the  simplest- 

76 


Among  the  "Movies' 


minded  landlady  recognised  me  at  once  for  an 
impostor.  Not  until  I  had  for  three  weeks 
acted  as  joint-assistant  with  another  man  of  title 
to  an  Italian  who  kept  a  peanut  stand  at  the 
corner  of  Twenty-third  Street  and  Sixth  Ave- 
nue did  I  discover  that  it  was  because  I  had  not 
the  proper  accent,  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
"  eccent."  When  I  say  assistant,  I  should  ex- 
plain that  the  Italian  was  fond  of  his  glass,  and 
that  Sir  Alured  —  I  mean  my  colleague  —  and 
I  used  alternately  to  mind  the  stand  in  his  ab- 
sence, and  be  rewarded  with  from  two  to  three 
cents-worth  of  peanuts,  according  to  time  and 
business  done.  Peanuts  are  very  satisfying, 
and  for  some  time  I  lived  literally  on  nothing 
else.  Then  I  heard  that  it  was  forbidden  to 
feed  them  to  the  squirrels  in  Central  Park  — 
because  they  were  supposed  to  give  them  mange 
—  so  I  decided  to  try  a  change  of  diet. 

It  was  after  I  resigned  my  post  in  Mr.  Chol- 
mondely's  delicatessen  store  that  I  went  into 
the  peanut  trade.  I  should  probably,  with  any 
luck,  have  had  a  stand  of  my  own  by  this  time 
had  I  not  one  day  run  up  against  a  former  cus- 

77 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

tomer,  Miss  Lamartine,  as  I  will  call  her,  of 
the  vaudeville  stage.  She  was  the  nice  girl  who 
had  regaled  me  with  sandwiches  in  Mr.  Chol- 
mondely's  store,  and  when  she  heard  that  my 
whole  worldly  wealth  consisted  of  three  collars 
which  I  carried  about  in  my  pocket  until  I  could 
afford  to  have  them  washed,  she  suggested  that 
I  should  get  work  with  the  "  movies."  She 
was  doing  so  already,  and  thought  she  could 
help  me  towards  being  taken  on  by  the  same 
people.  I  didn't  quite  know  what  "  movies  " 
were.  I  thought  they  had  something  to  do 
either  with  the  furniture  trade  or  woollen  un- 
derwear, but  I  jumped  at  the  offer,  especially 
when  she  told  me  it  was  worth  three  or  even 
five  dollars  a  day. 

Theatre  folk  are  proverbially  generous,  in 
New  York  as  elsewhere.  When  we  decided 
that  my  clothes  were  not  calculated  to  inspire 
confidence,  she  took  me  to  a  former  colleague 
who  roomed  on  the  East  Side.  As  he  had  no 
more  money  than  had  she,  he  very  kindly  of- 
fered to  lend  me  his  only  suit,  which  was  ex- 
tremely smart,  in  which  to  call  upon  the 

78 


Among  the  "Movies" 


Schutzenheimer  Film  Company  —  staying  in 
bed  until  I  came  back.  What  he  would  have 
done  if  I  had  not  come  back,  I  tremble  to 
think.  I  am  glad  to  say,  for  the  credit  of  Eng- 
land, that  I  resisted  temptation.  His  clothes 
fitted  me  quite  sufficiently  well,  considering  my 
nationality  —  the  average  New  Yorker  has  a 
prejudice  against  English  tailoring,  preferring 
something  in  which  he  can  wrap  himself  five- 
fold against  the  cold  blast  of  adversity  — •  and 
I  got  the  job. 

The  American  stage  is  largely  recruited  by 
English  actors  who  cannot  make  a  living  at 
home.  When  the  English  actor  in  New  York 
fails  in  the  legitimate  —  as  is  not  infrequent  — 
he  recruits  the  "  movies."  There  were  many 
of  him  in  the  Schutzenheimer  Company  — 
along  with  a  sprinkling  of  baronets  and  army 
captains. 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  enjoyed  a  week  more; 
there  was  only  one  drawback  —  a  serious  one  it 
is  true  —  the  necessity  of  getting  up  at  six  in 
the  morning.  The  Schutzenheimer  studio  was 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Hudson  and  work 

79 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

started  at  eight.  They  were  doing  a  film  of 
strong  moral  purpose  that  week,  showing  the 
evil  results  of  gambling.  In  one  scene  the 
gambler  wandered  into  a  wood,  I  don't  know 
why,  and  there  fell  asleep.  A  pitched  battle 
took  place  over  him  between  a  legion  of  devils 
and  his  guardian  angel.  I  was  one  of  the  dev- 
ils, although  the  producer  considered  me  rather 
stout  for  the  part.  I  know  I  made  an  effective 
devil ;  my  costume  was  black  and  skin-tight,  and 
I  wore  horns  and  tail.  The  place  where  we 
did  our  scene  was  in  the  woods,  about  three 
miles  from  the  studio.  We  went  there  ready 
made  up,  in  the  company's  auto,  and  it  broke 
down,  so  that  we  had  to  walk  back.  Miss 
Lamartine,  who  was  the  angel,  and  I  got  sepa- 
rated from  the  others,  trying  to  find  a  short 
cut  through  the  woods.  After  wandering  for 
something  like  an  hour  we  came  across  a  row 
of  unfinished  houses.  That  part  of  New  Jer- 
sey is  in  process  of  being  developed  as  suburbs, 
so  that  unfinished  roads  and  virgin  forest  are 
mixed  up  in  the  queerest  way.  We  saw  a 
workman  doing  something  outside  the  last 
80 


Among  the  "Movies" 


house,  and  I  went  up  to  ask  him  the  way.  As 
soon  as  he  saw  me  he  went  down  on  his  knees 
and  explained  that  he  had  only  taken  such  a 
little  drop  that  it  could  hardly  be  considered 
backsliding  at  all,  and  that  if  I  would  only  let 
him  off  this  time  he  would  never  touch  another 
drop  as  long  as  he  lived.  When  Miss  Lamar- 
tine  came  up,  all  in  white  with  golden  wings 
behind  her,  he  began  to  weep  with  joy  and 
gratitude  that  his  prayer  had  been  answered. 

It  was  my  own  fault  that  I  did  not  stay  with 
the  Schutzenheimers.  I  found,  though,  that 
the  only  way  I  could  get  up  early  enough  to 
catch  the  seven  o'clock  ferry  boat  was  by  sit- 
ting up  all  night  beforehand.  One  of  the  men 
in  the  company  gave  me  an  introduction  to  a 
man  who  had  a  booth  at  Coney  Island,  opposite 
Luna  Park,  and  wanted  a  Hindu  magician  in  a 
hurry.  The  pay  was  less  than  I  was  making, 
but  I  didn't  have  to  start  work  till  three  in  the 
afternoon,  so  I  applied  for  the  place  and  got  it. 


81 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Coney  Island 


IF  you  take  Earl's  Court,  Shepherd's  Bush, 
Blackpool,  Douglas,  I.  O.  M.,  and  the 
Hammersmith  Broadway  on  a  Saturday 
night ;  arrange  them  along  both  sides  of  a  street 
a  little  broader  than  Kingsway  and  perhaps 
three  times  as  long,  and  a  multitude  of  little 
alleys,  for  footpassengers  only,  leading  from 
it  to  the  sea;  set  the  whole  down  somewhere 
beyond  Shoeburyness  in  the  Essex  Marshes  and 
fill  up  the  space  between  it  and  London  with 
unfinished  suburbs  of  the  cheaper  kind  —  say 
Cricklewood,  only  built  of  wood  instead  of  red 
brick  —  you  will  have  a  very  faint  approxima- 
tion of  Coney  Island,  where  I  was  for  a  time 
a  Hindu  magician. 

In  the  elaborate  works  of  art  which  covered 
the  front  of  the  marquee  wherein  I  performed 


Coney  Island 


my  miracles,  I  was  pictured  as  a  high-caste 
Brahmin.  I  was  also  represented  as  having  a 
long  white  beard  and  as  sitting  on  a  carpet  sur- 
rounded by  Oriental  houris.  In  actual  fact  I 
had  no  beard  and  there  was  a  distressing  lack 
of  houris.  Instead,  there  was  a  bearded  lady 

—  quite  genuine  and  rather  pathetic,  seeing  that 
she  powdered  the  upper  part  of  her  face  with 
an  eager  earnestness  that  overran  its  purpose  — 
a  lady  with  four  legs,  the  thinnest  man  on  earth, 
the  most  despondent  giant  —  or  so  I  suppose 

—  on  earth;  two  horribly  deformed  negresses, 
described  as  bear-women,  and  a  snake-charmer, 
reputed  Oriental,  but  not  answering  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  houri. 

We  were  displayed  upon  platforms  ranged 
round  the  interior  of  the  marquee,  each  about 
the  size  of  a  large  dining-table ;  and  at  ten-min- 
ute intervals  a  lecturer  came  round  and  de- 
scribed us  to  those  members  of  the  public  who 
paid  a  dime  admission.  From  him  they  learnt 
that,  as  well  as  a  magician  and  a  Brahmin  of 
the  highest  caste,  I  was  a  fakir  and  a  guru.  To 
be  quite  truthful  I  myself  suggested  to  him  that 

83 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

I  should  be  a  guru,  and  the  idea  appealed  to 
him.  We  neither  of  us  knew  what  the  word 
meant — -not,  I  hope,  anything  improper  —  but 
it  had  an  Oriental  atmosphere  about  it.  I  was 
the  intimate  of  a  long  line  of  Viceroys;  I  had 
cured  the  late  King  Edward,  Kaiser  Wilhelm, 
and  the  President  of  the  Swiss  Republic  of  tic- 
douloureux  in  its  most  advanced  stage;  I  had 
been  visiting  the  western  slopes  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  in  search  of  curative  herbs,  and,  on 
my  homeward  journey  to  Mofusselbad,  I  had 
been  prevailed  upon,  at  enormous  expense,  to 
break  my  journey  at  Coney  Island.  My  sal- 
ary was  $12  a  week  and  two  meals  a  day,  with 
the  privilege  of  sleeping  in  the  marquee  at 
moments  of  financial  stress,  but  this  the  lecturer 
did  not  mention. 

My  more  immediate  purpose  was  to  sell  lit- 
tle bottles  of  toothache  tincture  at  the  reduced 
price  of  a  dime  each  —  never  retailed  to 
crowned  heads  at  less  than  a  hundred  dollars, 
and  then  only  to  potentates  in  reduced  circum- 
stances. Towards  this  end  I  had  a  turban,  an 
olive  complexion,  a  tom-tom,  upon  which  I  beat 

84 


From  him  they  learned  that,  as  well  as  a  magician  and  a 
Brahmin  of  the  highest  caste,  I  was  a  fakir  and  a  guru. 


Coney  Island 


with  my  fists  at  slack  moments,  and  an  Oriental 
prayer,  which  I  intoned  upon  my  knees,  beating 
the  floor  with  my  forehead  and  raising  my 
hands  heavenwards  alternately.  It  was  a  very 
good  prayer,  and  had  an  excellent  effect.  It 
was  a  very  good  toothache  tincture,  too ;  I  made 
it  myself  in  full  view  of  the  audience,  from  a 
large  white  root  that  looked  like  cheese  and 
smelt  like  a  pig's  idea  of  Paradise.  I  boiled 
it  in  a  lotah  —  I  called  it  a  loofah  several  times, 
by  mistake  —  over  a  charcoal  brazier.  I  used 
to  address  the  audience  in  flowery  English  — 
a  really  moving  address,  that  had  been  written 
for  Mr.  Czartorisky,  my  proprietor,  by  a  mem- 
ber of  the  staff  of  the  New  York  American. 
As  a  rule,  the  audience  were  quite  satisfied  with 
it,  but  one  evening  a  young  gentleman  of  the 
kind  ticketed  in  New  York  as  a  "  smart  Aleck," 
spoke  to  me  in  my  native  tongue.  He  had  a 
young  lady  with  him,  to  whom  he  loudly  de- 
scribed me  as  a  fraud,  which  annoyed  me,  con- 
sidering how  hard  I  was  working  for  my  living. 
He  said  that  he  had  lived  for  quite  a  time  in 
Calcutta.  The  young  lady  suggested  that  he 
85 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

should  expose  me,  and  he  came  forward  for 
that  purpose,  while  the  crowd  stood  round  ex- 
pectant. I  felt  the  lecturer  behind  me  tremble 
so  that  the  platform  shook,  but  I  was  not 
alarmed.  I  caught  an  appealing  expression  in 
the  young  man's  eye  more  expressive  than  many 
marconigrams.  Accordingly,  when  he  spoke  to 
me  in  unknown  tongues,  I  replied  to  him  in  a 
variation  of  Hindu  which  surprised  even  my- 
self. We  had  quite  a  pleasant  little  chat,  to 
the  admiration  of  the  beholders,  after  which  I 
saluted  him  in  English,  as  "  Lord  Sahib,"  and 
told  him  that  he  reminded  me  of  Lord  Curzon, 
who  had  bought  two  dozen  bottles  of  my 
specific,  and  that  I  hoped  he  would  do  no  less. 
He  was  quite  a  nice  boy;  he  bought  a  dozen  bot- 
tles there  and  then  and  gave  me  a  five-dollar 
bill  for  them  —  at  least  a  third  of  his  weekly 
salary,  I  suppose.  If  you  had  seen  the  look 
in  the  young  lady's  eyes,  though,  you  would 
have  realised  that  it  was  well  worth  it  to  him. 
I  salaamed  to  him  as  he  turned  away,  purple 
with  joy,  and  called  him  "  Lord  Sahib  of  all 
the  Elephants  "• —  and  the  young  lady  kissed 
86 


Coney  Island 


him  even  before  they  had  left  the  tent.  The 
rest  of  the  audience  cheered,  and  in  about  five 
minutes  I  had  sold  out  my  whole  stock.  They 
are  simple  souls,  the  Great  American  People, 
even  simpler,  I  think,  than  the  English.  I  will 
not  say  that  they  are  without  forethought, 
though.  I  had  two  written  proposals  of  mar- 
riage the  first  week,  and  both  insisted  that  I 
should  put  away  any  other  wives  I  might  al- 
ready have  in  India.  One  lady  added  that  I 
must  never  expect  her  to  ride  on  a  camel. 

We  were  really  a  very  happy  little  family, 
and  some  of  the  supper-parties  we  used  to  have 
in  the  marquee  after  closing  hours  —  which  is 
to  say  about  one  in  the  morning  —  were  perfect 
Agapes.  Czartorisky,  who  was  much  too  gen- 
erous ever  to  be  a  successful  man,  I  fear,  pro- 
vided the  fare,  which  was  always  the  same  — 
beer,  Frankfurters,  and  boiled  corn.  These 
are  the  staple  dishes  at  Coney  Island;  there 
must  be  a  thousand  establishments,  I  suppose, 
devoted  to  the  sale  of  "  Domestic  "  Frankfurt- 
ers in  Coney  Island,  not  a  very  large  number 
either,  if  you  remember  that  in  a  successful  sea- 
87 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

son  they  have  crowds  running  into  the  seven 
figures  in  the  course  of  a  day,  and  that  every 
one  of  them  eats  at  least  one  Frankfurter. 

I  was  —  and  knew  that  I  was  —  a  fool  to 
throw  up  such  a  job,  but  the  truth  of  the 
matter  was  that  I  could  not  stand  the  Bear- 
women.  I  don't  know  that  I  am  more  squeam- 
ish than  another,  but  there  was  something  so 
horrible  about  their  deformities  that  I  used  to 
squirm  every  time  I  saw  them.  I  thought  I 
should  get  used  to  it,  but  I  didn't  somehow,  and 
in  some  extraordinary  way  they  got  to  like  me 
—  they  were  sisters  —  and  used  to  come  and 
talk  to  me  at  odd  moments. 

I  stood  it  for  three  weeks  —  and  that  really 
was  a  continued  act  of  heroism,  although  I 
say  it  myself  —  and  then  the  lady  with  four 
legs  began  to  discuss  the  works  of  Mr.  Arnold 
Bennett  with  me  —  (this  is  quite  true,  although 
you  will  not  believe  a  word  of  it)  —  and  the 
combination  was  too  much.  I  told  Mr.  Czar- 
torisky  about  it  and  he  understood  —  he  was 
a  white  man  all  through  and  a  gentleman  — 
and  he  introduced  me,  over  a  "  clam-bake  " 

88 


Coney  Island 


dinner  on  the  sea-front,  to  a  business  acquaint- 
ance, who  ran  one  of  the  saddest  little  circuses 
you  ever  saw  in  your  life.  He  said  —  and  I 
really  believe  that  for  the  moment  he  believed 
it  himself  —  that  I  had  a  life-long  acquaintance 
with  the  East  Indies  and  was  a  natural-born 
mahout.  I  mention  this  because  it  shows  that 
Mr.  Czartorisky  was  a  poet  and  an  artist.  His 
friend,  whose  name  was  Wolff,  had  an  elephant 
—  such  a  sad,  pathetic  little  elephant,  as  you 
shall  hear  —  named,  of  all  names  in  the  world, 
Gladys,  and  he  was  anxious  about  her  health. 
He  thought  she  was  fretting  —  which  was  not 
at  all  unlikely  considering  that  her  mission  in 
life  was  to  balance  herself  ungracefully  upon  a 
large  wooden  ball  and  fit  herself,  disgracefully, 
into  a  chair  and  pretend  that  she  was  drinking 
champagne.  So  he  engaged  me  as  her  attend- 
ant, to  double  the  part,  so  to  put  it,  with  that 
of  assistant-groom  to  Danny,  who  was  a  mule 
and  was  advertised  as  the  strongest  kicking  mule 
in  the  world,  with  a  standing  offer  of  fifty  cents 
to  any  member  of  the  audience  who  should 
succeed  in  sitting  him  twice  round  the  ring. 

89 


CHAPTER  IX 

"Gladys" 


IF  I  had  been  Mr.  Wolff  I  do  not  think  I 
should  have  engaged  me  to  act  as  attend- 
ant to  Gladys.  Not,  at  any  rate,  to  ap- 
pear publicly  in  that  capacity.  I  freely  admit 
that  I  am  large,  for  my  species  —  both  in 
length  and  depth  and  width.  Gladys,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  distinctly  small.  She  was  an 
elephant  all  right,  because  she  had  a  trunk. 
She  was  an  Africam  elephant,  too,  as  her  ears 
witnessed  —  although  I  have  been  told  that 
African  elephants  are  untamable.  On  the 
other  hand,  African  elephants  have  large  ears 
and,  at  the  risk  of  being  accused  of  exag- 
geration, I  can  only  say  that  her  ears  were  so 
large  that,  had  she  been  only  a  foot  or  two 
smaller,  and  accustomed  to  hang  upside  down 
from  one  foot,  she  could  easily  have  passed  as 
90 


"Gladys" 

a  bat.  We  got  so  fond  of  each  other  that  I 
sometimes  used  to  feel  that  I  was  unfaithful  to 
poor  Chris. 

I  never  became  really  intimate  with  Danny. 
For  one  thing  he  had  a  distorted  sense  of  hu- 
mour and  a  long  reach.  He  could  kick  all 
round  him  with  each  leg  separately  or  all  to- 
gether, and  when  he  hit  you  he  hurt.  He  was 
a  consummate  hypocrite.  One  particular  trick 
of  which  he  was  very  fond  was  to  pretend  that 
he  was  an  amiable  horse  muzzling  his  nose  into 
your  pocket  in  search  of  a  carrot.  He  didn't 
want  any  carrot  in  reality.  He  didn't  like 
them.  He  very  much  preferred  a  plug  of  chew- 
ing tobacco.  What  he  wanted  was  a  bit  of 
you,  and  when  he  had  got  that  he  would  go  off 
into  a  perfect  volley  of  malicious  laughter  in 
case  you  should  miss  the  point  of  the  joke.  I 
will  say  for  him,  though,  that  with  all  his  little 
faults  of  character  he  was  a  conscientious  work- 
man. Mr.  Wolff  might  safely  have  olered 
five  hundred  dollars  to  whoever  could  ride  him 
twice  round  the  ring  against  his  will;  even  a 
monkey  couldn't  sit  him  for  two  minutes  and  we 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

had  one  monkey,  called  Ipecachuana,  who  was 
the  best  rider  I  ever  saw.  It  was  really  a 
pleasure  to  see  Danny  get  to  work.  He  would 
start  with  two  or  three  harmless  buckings,  to 
give  the  enemy  confidence.  Then  he  would 
drop  his  head  until  his  nose  touched  the  sawdust, 
stand  on  three  legs  and  use  the  fourth  —  it 
was  immaterial  which,  though  he  got  the  pret- 
tiest action  out  of  his  off  hind  foot  —  as  a  rake 
or  comb  or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it.  He 
would  begin  along  one  side,  to  stretch  his 
muscles  a  bit  and  worry  his  rider,  and  he  would 
gradually  work  upwards  until  there  was  not  an 
inch  of  his  own  backbone,  from  withers  to  tail, 
that  had  not  been  explored  by  that  extremely 
quick-action  hoof.  I  haven't  the  least  doubt  he 
could  have  combed  himself  down  the  other  side 
as  well,  if  he  had  felt  like  it,  but  he  never  needed 
to.  His  enemy  was  always  outside  the  ring 
by  that  time. 

He  had  the  artistic  temperament,  had  Danny, 

with  all  that  it  implies  for  good  and  evil.     One 

way  in  which  he  showed  it  was  his  method  of 

entering  the  ring.     He  was  never  the  same  in 

92 


"Gladys" 

any  two  performances,  always  altering  and  im- 
proving and  experimenting  towards  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  art.  Sometimes  he  would  adopt  the 
despondent  suggestion  of  a  broken-down  cab- 
horse,  tottering  sluggishly  into  the  ring  and 
standing  there  awaiting  trouble  —  the  other 
man's  trouble  —  the  very  picture  of  despond- 
ency. He  even  used  to  keep  his  eyes  shut  —  or 
that  one  which  was  towards  the  audience  —  to 
veil  the  red  light  of  savage  anticipation  within 
them.  Another  time  he  would  rush  into  action 
like  an  embattled  volcano,  eyes  blazing,  ears 
laid  so  far  back  that  you  could  not  see  them, 
mouth  wide  open  and  every  hair  on  his  hide 
standing  up  in  separate  defiance.  Then  he 
would  rollick  round  and  round  the  ring,  daring 
any  one  to  come  within  five  foot  of  his  four. 

There  was  only  one  weak  spot  in  Danny,  re- 
garded in  the  light  of  a  money-maker,  and 
that  was  his  independent  spirit.  Even  in  my 
limited  period  of  acquaintanceship  with  him  he 
three  or  four  times  played  Mr.  Wolff  the  nasty 
trick  of  pretending  that  he  was  a  sheep.  He 
would  amble  into  the  ring  with  an  air  of  the 
93 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

sweetest  reasonableness  and  there  he  would 
stand  until  a  boy  got  on  his  back.  Then,  while 
we  were  all  watching-out  to  catch  the  boy  when 
the  explosion  should  take  place,  he  would  sur- 
prise us  by  ambling  gently  round  the  ring,  doing 
everything  that  his  rider  told  him  and  finally 
standing  still  for  him  to  dismount,  with  the 
expression  on  his  hypocritical  face  of  a  well- 
trained  butler  conscious  of  having  done  his  best 
It  used  to  annoy  Mr.  Wolff  quite  considerably; 
but  it  was  really  very  good  for  trade,  because 
it  encouraged  other  boys  to  try  their  luck  and 
he  never  did  the  ambling  palfrey  act  twice  in 
one  week. 

It  was  as  well  that  we  had  Danny  to  liven 
things  up  a  bit;  apart  from  him  I  suppose  we 
were  the  most  despondent  sort  of  circus  that 
ever  tried  to  exist.  And  Gladys  was  the  most 
despondent  creature  in  it.  Nature  never  in- 
tended her  for  a  circus-performer ;  she  ought  to 
have  been  a  nun,  attached  to  some  Order  where 
she  was  allowed  melancholy  love  affairs  with 
consumptive  young  boy-elephants  and  given 
94 


"GladyiT 

stated  hours  for  weeping  over  their  early  graves. 
Failing  that  she  ought  to  have  been  a  char- 
woman —  or  as  we  should  say  in  America,  a 
scrub-lady  —  with  a  husband  who  beat  her,  and 
eight  children.  She  had  very  little  hair,  but 
she  carried  the  permanent  suggestion  that  she 
never  put  it  up  properly,  only  made  it  into  an 
unkempt  wisp  when  she  got  up  in  the  morning, 
and  left  the  rest  to  Providence.  I  always  think 
of  her  now  as  wearing  a  rusty  black  bonnet  with 
strings  and  as  shedding  tears. 

I  never  knew  for  certain,  but  I  think  she  must 
have  had  an  unhappy  love-affair  with  the  man 
who  preceded  me  as  her  mahout.  I  think  that 
he  borrowed  all  her  money,  under  promise  of 
marriage  and  forgot  to  pay  it  back  before  he 
left.  If  it  were  so,  I  am  not  sure  that  the  blame 
was  altogether  his.  I  think  he  must  have  been 
sorely  tempted.  Before  I  had  known  her  three 
days  she  signified  to  me  in  the  usual  manner 
that  her  heart  was  mine  alone  and  only  mine. 
She  used  to  put  her  trunk  round  my  waist  and 
whisper  her  troubles  into  my  ear  and  when  she 

95 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

felt  sure  that  I  was  what  the  Italians  would  call 
simpatica,  she  tried  to  climb  onto  my  knee  and 
lean  her  head  on  my  shoulder. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  make  sure  whether 
she  suffered  from  stage-fright  or  was  merely 
incompetent.  Sometimes  —  about  once  in  five 
attempts  —  she  would  go  through  her  act  quite 
perfectly;  sit  upon  her  chair,  if  not  gracefully, 
at  least  solidly;  raise  herself  up  on  end,  plac- 
ing one  foot  on  the  table;  ring  her  bell  with  a 
certain  dignity  and,  when  I  brought  her  the 
Indian  club  wrapped  in  silver-foil  that  passed 
for  her  champagne  bottle,  drink  from  it  at  least 
as  convincingly  as  you  could  expect  from  any 
untutored  African  ingenue.  But  —  the  odd 
four  appearances  could  only  be  described  as 
tragic  fiascos.  Either  she  would  go  on  her 
knees  and  look  at  me  out  of  the  corners  of  her 
eyes  —  they  were  small  and  red  and  rather 
piggy  —  so  appealingly  that  members  of  the 
S.  P.  C.  A.  who  happened  to  be  present  would 
be  stirred  to  instant  action,  or  else  she  would 
seize  her  hand-bell,  give  it  one  tragic,  despair- 
ing clang,  attempt  to  drink  out  of  it,  as  though 

96 


"Gladys" 

she  thought  it  was  her  champagne  bottle  and 
then  promptly  lie  down  —  a  performance  that 
was  not  expected  of  her  until  the  end  of  her  act 

—  and  refuse  to  get  up,  whatever  the  means  of 
compulsion,  until  the  five  bears,  introduced  by 
the  Signora  Esmeralda,  who  was  really  Mrs. 
Wolff    under    another    name,    were    half-way 
through  their  melancholy  pretence  at  gymnas- 
tics.    She  would  confide  to  me  afterwards,  as  I 
led  her  to  the  canvas  stable  which  she  shared 
with  Danny  and  the  three  pie-balds,  and  Senor 
Vivaldas'  monkeys,  and  Joey  the  vulgar  donkey 

—  that  she  was  a  femme  incompromise  —  her 
French  was  not  very  good  —  and  that  until 
Women  got  the  vote  —  and  things  like  that.     I 
believe  so,  at  least,  because  grief  usually  made 
her  incoherent  and  she  was  feeling  for  bits  of 
sugar  —  which  she  did  not  deserve  —  in  all  my 
pockets  while  she  spoke. 

If  Mr.  Wolff  had  been  the  ordinary  kind  of 
circus-proprietor  I  should  certainly  have  got  the 
sack  within  a  week  of  my  enlistment  under  his 
banner.  Fortunately  for  me  —  for  I  was  very 
happy  with  him  —  he  was  not.  His  ambition 
97 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

was  to  be  a  minister.  I  know  it  sounds  as  if  I 
were  making  this  up,  but  I  am  not  — >  and  any- 
one who  performed  at  Coney  Island  in  the 
spring  of  1912  can  tell  you  so.  He  was 
quite  a  young  man  and  he  had  studied  theology 
somewhere  in  Mamaroneck,  New  York,  and  if 
he  had  not  married,  I  think  —  from  what  I 
know  of  him  —  that  he  would  be  studying  there 
now. 

Before  her  marriage  Mrs.  Wolff  was  a 
school-teacher.  She  was  the  niece  of  the  orig- 
inal proprietor  of  the  circus,  but  she  was  not 
on  visiting-terms  with  him,  because  her  mother 
held  that  circuses  were  immoral.  Her  hus- 
band agreed  with  her  mother,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  she  agreed  with  her  husband  and 
listened  to  his  prosy  arguments  on  the  Whole 
Duty  of  Man  with  all  the  earnest-eyed  adora- 
tion into  which  a  really  nice  girl  can  persuade 
herself  when  she  is  in  love.  They  had  been 
married  about  six  months  —  starving  genteely, 
I  suppose,  most  of  the  time  —  when  the  uncle 
died  and  left  her  the  circus.  Mr.  Wolff  would 
have  flinched  from  the  responsibility  and  at- 

98 


"Gladys" 

tributed   his    cowardice    to    high   moral    tone. 
Mrs.  Wolff  did  not.     She  pointed  out  to  him 

—  of  course  I  was  not  present,  but  so  I  believe 

—  that  if  the  affair  were  sold  up  at  once  it 
would  bring  in  enough  to  support  them  —  and 
a  probable  third  person  —  for  about  a   fort- 
night.    If  it  were  run  as  a  going  concern  and 
with    ability,    enough    might    in    the    end    be 
made  out  of  it  for  him  to  be  able  to  afford  to 
enter  the  ministry. 

Mrs.  Wolff  was  raised  somewhere  in  the 
back-blocks  of  Vermont,  which  is  to  say  that 
she  was  a  young  woman  of  New  England; 
which  is  to  say  that  she  had  ideas  on  the  pro- 
prieties and  the  respectabilities  and  the  de- 
cencies which  you  will  find  nowhere  else  in  the 
world,  except  perhaps  in  parts  of  Surbiton  and 
Croydon  and  the  lower  end  of  the  Balham  High 
Road.  When  I  joined  the  aggregation  they 
had  been  running  it  for  just  over  a  year,  and 
she  used  to  put  five  sad-eyed  bears  through 
their  paces  three  times  a  day.  They  were 
dressed  for  soldiers  and  she  wore  a  very  smart 
vivandiere's  costume  and  very  pretty  she 

99 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

looked  in  it.  She  was  not  a  good  bear-leader. 
She  has  told  me  herself  that  she  was  horribly 
afraid  of  the  bears  at  first,  ragged  and  de- 
pressed and  lacking  in  enterprise  as  they  were. 
The  costume  outraged  all  her  sensibilities,  also 
—  but  she  was  up  against  it,  and  she  meant  to 
make  good  and  she  did.  That  was  the  sort  of 
woman  she  was.  The  original  Signora  Es- 
meralda  —  I  imagine  that  she  was  something 
of  a  hussy,  though  I  never  saw  her  —  was  re- 
ceiving thirty  dollars  a  week  and  extras. 
When  the  concern  changed  hands  she  thought 
she  saw  her  opportunity  for  blackmail  and  de- 
manded seventy-five.  Mr.  Wolff  would  have 
given  it  her,  to  save  trouble.  Mrs.  Wolff  got 
rid  of  the  Signora  at  short  notice,  carried  out 
some  legal  arrangement  that  vested  in  her  the 
ownership  of  the  dismal  troupe  and  herself  as- 
sumed the  vacant  leadership. 

I  am  not  a  New  England  school-marm,  and 
I  have  no  objection  to  fancy  dress  or  the  smell 
of  sawdust,  and  I  am  not  afraid  of  bears,  at 
least  of  mangy,  melancholy  bears  without  a 
decent  claw-stroke  among  them  —  so  I  cannot 
100 


"Gladys33 

myself  realise  all  that  it  must  have  meant  to 
Mrs.  Wolff.  But  I  can  imagine  it.  It  was  not 
all  she  did  either,  by  a  long  way.  She  had  a 
very  small  pink  son,  called  Tobias,  and  she  used 
to  mother  him  and  see  to  all  the  business  side 
of  the  affair,  and  run  the  staff  and  book  the 
tours  and  make  contracts  for  hay,  and  do  a  hun- 
dred other  things  as  well.  Her  husband  had  a 
little  canvas  room  just  behind  the  stables  and 
he  spent  nearly  all  his  time  in  it.  I  think  he 
used  to  pray  there,  and  I  know  he  was  writing 
a  book  on  the  most  profitable  Way  of  Conver- 
sion, because  as  soon  as  he  found  that  I  had 
lived  for  a  time  in  Wales  —  which  is  where  all 
the  best  brands  of  religion  come  from  nowa- 
days —  he  insisted  on  reading  some  of  it  to  me. 
He  was  disappointed  in  me  at  first,  because 
Czartorisky  had  —  with  the  kindest  intentions 
—  given  him  the  impression  that  during  my 
long  years  of  residence  at  Mofusselbad  I  had 
become  slightly  tainted  with  Buddhism,  and  he 
scented  a  shining  reconversion. 

Mr.  Wolff  did  not  convert  me  to  anything; 
Mrs.  Wolff  made  me  a  feminist  and  a  suffra- 
101 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

gist  and  at  Mrs.  Pankhurst's  service  whenever 
she  cares  to  call  upon  me.  Even  Gladys,  who 
is,  I  suppose,  the  most  feminine  creature  with 
whom  I  ever  foregathered,  was  never  again 
able  to  rouse  in  me  the  Pride  of  Manhood. 
That  was  a  good  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  my 
conversion  because,  disregarding  the  proprie- 
ties, we  used  to  take  exercise  together  on  the 
sands  of  Coney  Island  in  the  very  early  morn- 
ing. We  used  to  walk  arm-in-trunk,  picking 
our  way  among  the  thousands  of  New  Yorkers 
who  find  there  cheap  sleeping-places  during  the 
warmer  months.  Gladys,  holding  the  tip  of 
her  trunk  so  that  I  could  not  escape  a  word  of 
it,  used  to  open  her  heart  to  me  —  and  even  so 
I  am  still  a  suffragist. 

I  remained  associated  with  Wolff's  Mam- 
moth Hippodrome  and  Concise  Compendium 
of  the  World's  Most  Marvellous  Miracles 
until  it  again  changed  hands.  It  happened  not 
very  far  from  a  place  called  Montauk,  which 
is  at  the  furthest  extremity  of  Long  Island  and 
quite  a  long  way  from  New  York,  so  I  suppose 
that  I  ought  not  to  include  it  in  these  reminis- 
102 


I 


d 
t) 

£ 


"Gladys" 

cences.  As  however  the  reader  who  has  ac- 
companied me  so  far  has  already  paid,  I  am 
not  unduly  worried. 

We  were  performing  in  a  certain  village,  the 
name  of  which  I  will  not  mention,  when  Mr. 
Wolff  got  a  call.  I  don't  know  how  he  got  it, 
because  I  was  down  at  the  railroad  depot  at 
the  time,  seeing  after  a  shipment  of  hay  that 
had  gone  astray;  and  before  I  got  back  Mrs. 
Wolff  had  arranged  everything,  sold  the  whole 
concern  over  the  telephone  as  it  stood,  settled 
all  the  bills,  given  us  all  formal  notice,  inter- 
viewed a  doctor  about  some  childish  trouble  — • 
I  think  it  was  croup  or  convulsions  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort  with  which  Master  Tobias 
was  experimenting  —  and  was  looking  up  the 
times  of  the  boats  from  Montauk  Point  to 
somewhere  in  Connecticut  where  the  call  came 
from. 

She  had  grown  quite  fond  of  her  bears  by 
that  time  and  felt  she  couldn't  part  with  them, 
so  she  excepted  them  from  the  sale  and  took 
them  with  her.  I  often  used  to  wonder  what 
the  congregation  thought  of  them. 

103 


CHAPTER  X 

"Who's  Got  the  Button?" 


I  MIGHT  have  remained  with  the  Com- 
pendium under  the  new  proprietary,  but 
somehow  I  did  not  feel  anxious  to  do  so. 
I  was  sorry  to  part  with  Gladys;  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  she  showed  few  signs  of  grief  at 
losing  me,  displaying  instead,  when  I  intro- 
duced her  new  mahout,  a  deeper  interest  in  the 
contents  of  the  new  Amurath's  pockets  than  in 
the  farewells  of  the  old.  I  do  not  blame  her, 
the  less  so  that  when  I  again  met  with  her,  by 
chance,  in  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  some  months 
later,  she  indubitably  recognised  me  —  her 
trunk-tip  darting  as  undeviatingly  towards  the 
pocket  in  which  I  used  to  keep  the  sugar  as 
does  an  arrow  towards  its  goal.  She  was  of  a 
different  temperament  to  Chris.  On  my  re- 
turn to  New  York  I  paid  him  an  early  visit  and 

104 


"Who's  Got  the  Button?" 


he  positively  howled  with  delight  on  seeing  me 
again.  I  very  nearly  did  myself,  so  honours 
were  easy. 

I  had  thirty  dollars  in  my  pocket  when  I 
parted  brass-rags  with  the  Wolffs,  and  quite  an 
album  of  photo-postcards.  It  was  characteris- 
tic that  those  representing  Mr.  Wolff  all 
showed  him  in  clerical  guise;  poring  over  a 
massive  tome;  raising  his  eyes  heavenwards  in 
ecstatic  thought  or,  in  one  of  which  he  was 
very  proud,  in  prayer  before  a  mahogany  tall- 
boy —  the  shoe-heels  rather  larger  than  life 
owing  to  perspective  difficulties.  This  last 
he  autographed  as  "  Rev.  Meander  S.  Wolff." 
His  wife  preferred  to  be  remembered  in  my 
mind  in  two  alternative  aspects  —  as  Vivan- 
diere,  putting  her  bears  through  their  exercises; 
and  as  Mother,  yearning  over  her  first-born 
with  that  intensity,  photographically  sacred  to 
maternity,  which  suggests  the  fear  that  the 
first-born  is  going  to  be  sick  and  spoil  the  pic- 
ture. They  were  very  good  people,  the 
Wolffs,  and  if  I  ever  enter  Heaven  I  shall  ex- 
pect to  meet  him  there.  I  am  not  so  sure  about 

105 


Vagabond  in  New  York 


his  wife,  because  I  know  she  will  insist  on  tak- 
ing her  bears  with  her  and  if  any  officious  arch- 
angels are  about,  difficulties  may  result.  Per- 
haps, though,  she  will  succeed  in  passing  them 
off  as  those  that  ate  up  the  small  boys  who  told 
the  bald-headed  prophet  to  go  up. 

I  decided  to  walk  back  to  New  York,  because 
when  you  have  money  in  your  pocket  you  feel 
that  it  is  unfair  to  others  less  happily  situated 
to  spoil  the  market.  I  had  not  gone  twenty 
miles  on  my  homeward  way  before  I  fell  in 
love  and  stayed  there  —  in  situ  I  mean.  I  did 
not  fall  in  love  with  one  woman,  but  with  two, 
I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  say. 
It  happened  at  Hopkins's,  which  is  within  a 
thousand  miles  of  Good  Ground,  which  is  in 
Long  Island  and  would  be  ideal  were  it  not  in- 
fested with  golfers.  Hopkins's  stands  in  a 
wood  a  couple  of  miles  away  from  the  golfers 
and  I  have  never  seen  a  prettier  place,  nor  one 
that  more  completely  satisfied  the  desire  occa- 
sionally felt,  even  by  those  of  us  who  are  vaga- 
bonds, for  a  place  where  one  could  really  settle 
down  and  be  at  rest.  Its  first  attraction  to  me 

106 


"Who's  Got  the  Button?3' 


was  a  little  runnel  of  water,  springing  up  out  of 
nowhere  and  dimpling  along  over  a  natural 
carpet  of  grass.  I  was  thirsty  and  I  bent 
down  to  drink,  and  while  I  was  drinking  a  large 
buck  nigger  fell  upon  me  —  literally  I  mean  — 
out  of  a  cherry-tree.  He  did  not  hurt  me  at 
all,  but  we  rolled  over  and  over  together  in  the 
runlet,  and  in  due  course  I  held  his  head  under 
it  until  I  thought  he  was  drowned  —  and  then 
Sarah  and  Billy  appeared. 

I  didn't  know  who  they  were  and  they  cer- 
tainly didn't  know  who  I  was,  and  as  they  came 
up  to  where  I  sat,  vilifying  my  Maker,  on  the 
edge  of  the  runlet,  they  held  out  fat  podgy 
fists,  rigidly  clasped,  towards  me  —  and  I 
am  bound  to  confess,  also  towards  the  nigger, 
who  was  squattering  on  the  bank  like  a 
wounded  duck  —  and  they  said  "  Button  — 
Button  —  Who's  got  the  button  ?  "  They  said 
it  in  the  queer  little  high-piped  voice  of  child- 
hood that  is  sometimes  an  ecstasy  and  some- 
times an  intolerable  pain  —  according  to  what 
you  have  been  doing  for  the  last  six  months  or 
so. 

107 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

I  was  not  initiated  about  the  button,  but  I 
felt  it  would  be  right  to  extend  my  hands  as 
they  did  —  and  Sarah  dropped  something  into 
my  palm  and  pouted.  "  He's  got  the  button," 
she  said  —  and  I  certainly  had,  and  it  was  evi- 
dently part  of  the  game  that  if  you  had  the 
button  you  lost  the  game.  It  was  a  little  white 
button.  I  have  still  got  it. 

Sarah  was  two  and  a  half  and  Billy  was  a 
year  older,  and  they  had  ordered  Jake,  who  was 
the  nigger,  into  the  cherry-tree  to  pick  them 
cherries.  And  because  they  were  Billy  and 
Sarah  he  had  gone,  although  it  was  weeks  after 
the  last  cherry  had  been  picked  —  and  if  you 
had  been  there  you  would  have  done  the  same. 
Billy,  let  me  say,  was  a  young  lady.  She  it  was 
who  continued  the  conversation.  "  I  said 
something  very  funny  just  now,"  she  confided 
to  me,  with  a  shade  of  abruptness  in  her  man- 
ner. 

I  suppose  I  looked  interested,  for  she  did 
not  wait  for  a  reply.  "  I  said  Dod,"  she  ex- 
claimed. "  And  it  means,  *  Tumble  right 
down.'  " 

1 08 


"Who's  Got  the  Button?" 


As  I  have  already  said  I  do  not  know  that 
I  am  partial  to  babies.     As  a  rule  I  prefer 
elephants,  because  you  are  not  afraid  to  lecture 
them  if  they  annoy  you.     But  I  certainly  did 
like  Billy  and  Sarah.     They  were  not  babies, 
for  one   thing,   they  were  whole  millions  of 
years  old  —  you  had  only  to  see  them  walk  to 
be  sure  of  it.     They  always  walked  together, 
hand-in-hand  rather  stiffly  and  with  a  certain 
care.     They  were  not  particularly  pretty  —  as 
I  have  been  told  by  neighbouring  mothers  — 
but  they  had  little  twiny  fingers  that  used  to 
twist  round  yours  very  trustfully,  and  big  round 
eyes  that  when  they  caught  yours  used  to  make 
something   click   inside   you,    and   I    know   in 
my  heart,  although  he  never  admitted  it,  that 
Jake  tumbled  from  the  cherry-tree  on  top  of 
me  —  although  he  saw  that  I  was  white  and 
large  and  that  trouble  would  ensue  —  because 
he  thought  that  it  would  make  them  laugh.     It 
did  not  —  I  never  knew  them  to  laugh  except 
at  inward  thoughts  of  their  own  which  they 
never  shared  with  mere  mortals  —  but  it  was 
worth    the    risk.     I    did    much    more    absurd 

109 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

things  myself  before  I  had  done  with  them  — 
and  I  am  a  very  clever  man  and  they  no  more 
than  farmer's  brats.  I  forget  if  I  mentioned 
that  I  have  got  that  button  still. 

I  wasn't  a  hobo  just  then,  and  I  was  not 
looking  out  for  the  chance  of  doing  u  chores  " 
but  I  really  had  no  say  in  the  matter.  They 
walked  very  stiffly,  one  on  each  side  of  me 
—  as  I  suppose  the  angels  do  when  you  are 
trying  to  dodge  Saint  Peter  —  and  after  ex- 
actly ten  steps,  as  if  they  were  doing  it  to 
signal,  each  took  one  of  my  hands  —  they 
had  soft  little  fingers,  as  I  have  said,  of  the 
sort  that  make  you  wish  you  had  married  de- 
cently twenty  years  ago  and  had  a  safe  job  in 
a  bank.  We  made  a  little  procession  —  Jake, 
who  was  already  murderously  jealous,  follow- 
ing behind  —  to  an  old  frame  house  that  was 
covered  over  from  roof-tree  to  ground  with  wis- 
taria boughs.  It  stood  in  a  little  grove  of  its 
own,  all  wedged  in  among  bright  flowers,  most 
of  them  purple  and  blue,  with  a  very  strong  sun- 
light shining  down  on  them,  and  brown  fields 
and  woods  just  thinking  about  getting  golden. 

no 


"Who's  Got  the  Button?' 


We  went  in  by  a  back  door  —  it  was  none  of 
my  doing  —  and  just  before  we  entered  I  half 
turned  my  head  for  some  reason  that  I  don't 
remember,  and  I  saw  a  blue  vision  of  sea  slither 
up  among  the  trees.  As  we  get  older  we  re- 
member things  more  by  little  impressionist  pic- 
tures than  as  actual  happenings.  The  sea,  as 
I  have  said,  was  blue  —  real  blue  —  and  there 
was  a  false  blue  —  some  kind  of  a  flower  I 
suppose  —  just  beside  it  and  a  touch  of  pearl 
colour  above  it  edged  with  golden  pink,  and 
the  grey  door  opening  slowly,  and  rich  umber 
within  and  a  face  —  it  seemed  ash-colour — 
watching  out  of  it.  The  children  were  there 
also  in  the  picture,  although  I  wasn't  looking  at 
them  and  could  not  see  them.  They  were  of 
some  warm  colour  that  filled  up  the  edges.  I 
often  see  it  now  —  although  I  am  living  in 
Chelsea  and  have  no  other  outlook  than  the 
chimney-pots  over  the  way.  Even  Jake  —  who 
was  five  feet  behind  me  and  clamantly  invisible 
—  enters  that  picture  as  a  sort  of  brown 
smudge. 

The  face  was  that  of  the  mother,  who  was 
in 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

named  Mrs.  Hopkins  and  whose  husband  was 
a  farmer.  Our  introduction  was  "  He's  got 
the  button  "  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
same  thing  had  happened  before,  because  Mrs. 
Hopkins  took  everything  for  granted,  and  told 
me  that  I  could  sleep  in  the  barn,  before  I  had 
broached  any  subject  at  all.  We  had  prayers 
that  night  —  the  family  and  Jake  and  a  girl  and 
two  hired  men  —  and  I  slept  like  a  lamb  and 
woke  at  four  in  the  morning,  which  as  it  turned 
out  was  exactly  the  time  I  was  supposed  to 
wake  and  gave  Mr.  Hopkins  a  very  good  opin- 
ion of  me.  I  expect  that  Sarah  —  who  was 
the  more  mystical  of  the  two  —  rang  up  one 
of  her  particular  friends  among  the  angels  and 
told  him  about  me  and  that  I  was  not  naturally 
an  early  riser. 

I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  any  more  about 
Billy  and  Sarah  because  I  should  hate  to  be 
thought  a  sentimentalist.  Like  Jacob  I  served 
three  weeks  for  Sarah  and  another  three  weeks 
for  Billy,  hewing  wood  and  drawing  water,  and 
one  morning  I  realised  that  I  was  in  danger  of 
catching  the  prevalent  American  disease  — 

112 


"Who's  Got  the  Button?1 


sentimentality  —  and  I  chose  a  moment  when  I 
knew  that  Billy  and  Sarah  were  busy  with  the 
tortoise,  and  I  drew  my  money  and  left.  I 
don't  know  whether  the  tortoise  was  wild  or 
domesticated,  whether  he  just  grew  or  whether 
he  had  escaped  from  somewhere,  but  we 
found  him,  we  three,  on  the  edge  of  the 
runlet  one  morning  when  I  was  supposed  to 
be  chopping  wood  in  the  barn,  and  I  made 
a  little  hole  in  his  shell  and  put  a  bit  of 
string  through  it  and  we  tethered  him  there 
and  called  him  Alphonso  —  at  least  I  did; 
Billy  and  Sarah  called  him  Funs  —  and  we 
made  a  little  dam  across  the  runlet  with  clay 
and  branches  in  case  he  should  want  a  swim, 
which  I  don't  think  he  ever  did,  and  we  made 
up  a  story  about  his  being  a  Spanish  Prince, 
who  was  looking  for  the  Princess  Bright-Eyes, 
and  had  been  turned  into  a  tortoise  by  a 
Wicked  Witch,  and  we  spent  a  great  deal  of 
our  time  there  safeguarding  him  against 
further  enchantment. 

I  left  by  the  path  that  went  through  the 
wood    and    past    the    spring-head    and    as    I 

"3 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

walked  along  I  saw  two  little  figures  in  blue 
overalls  and  two  little  flaxen  heads  very  close 
together  bending  down  over  the  runlet  —  and 
since  I  got  back  to  England  quite  a  number  of 
asses  have  condoled  with  me  over  the  hard 
times  I  had  in  America. 


114 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  Pair  of  Boots 


WHEN  I  have  made  my  fortune  and 
buy  America  I  am  going  to  re- 
serve Long  Island  for  my  private 
residence  and  divide  the  rest  among  my  friends. 
I  do  not  say  it  is  the  most  beautiful  or  desirable 
place  in  the  Continent,  because  there  are  some 
parts  that  I  don't  know;  but  it  happens  to 
please  me  best  and  as  I  shall  be  paying  the 
piper  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not  call  the 
tune.  My  chief  residence  will  be  somewhere 
very  near  Amicus  and  for  the  same  reason;  I 
don't  say  it  is  the  most  beautiful  part  of  the 
Island  —  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  not  —  but  I 
have  very  pleasant  memories  of  it  indeed.  It 
is  not  called  Amicus,  but  something  rather  like 
it. 

I  arrived  in  Amicus  on  foot,  but  as  I  had 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

nearly  forty  dollars  in  my  pocket  I  put  up  at 
an  hotel.  It  was  not  one  of  the  big  summer 
palaces  down  on  the  Ocean-shore,  but  a  very 
pleasant,  old-fashioned  place  near  the  railroad 
depot,  with  a  dear  old  landlady  who  mothered 
you,  and  who  took  no  end  of  trouble  to  find  the 
store  where  they  sold  exactly  the  brand  of 
dentifrice  you  liked  best,  and  who  had  a  hus- 
band who  used  to  come  into  your  bedroom  in 
the  morning  before  you  were  up  and  sit  on  the 
edge  of  the  bed  and  discuss  the  latest  murder 
with  you.  His  way  of  discussion  was  rather 
unusual.  He  would  begin,  as  if  he  were  a 
newspaper  headline.  "  Love  drama  in  Ho- 
boken.  Octogenarian  millionaire  asphyxiated. 
William  J.  Jones  —  wife's  sister's  son  sus- 
pected." When  he  had  said  that  he  would 
put  something  into  his  mouth  and  ruminate.  I 
never  found  out  what  it  was  —  chewing  gum,  I 
think  —  but  at  least  he  never  spat,  although 
sometimes  he  would  wander  away  towards  the 
window  and  take  whatever  it  was  out  of  his 
mouth  and  look  at  it  very  carefully  as  though 
it  were  a  clue,  and  then  put  it  back  again  and  sit 

116 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  resume  the 
discussion.  I  don't  mean  that  he  said  any- 
thing. As  a  matter  of  fact  he  never  spoke; 
only  stared  very  hard  at  a  text  hung  over  in 
one  corner  of  the  room,  with  his  head  up  so 
that  you  could  see  the  veins  and  muscles  of  his 
throat  working  under  his  chin-beard  in  time  to 
the  great  thoughts  that  were  pouring  off  him. 
After  about  ten  minutes  he  would  get  up  and 
go  away;  and  I  know  that  he  thought  well  of 
me,  because  he  afterwards  got  me  a  job  and  he 
told  the  other  man  that  I  was  the  brightest 
talker  he  had  ever  known  —  although,  beyond 
"  Good-morning  "  and  "  Good-night,"  I  really 
do  not  think  I  ever  said  twenty  words  to  him. 

It  was  not  until  some  weeks  later  that  I  un- 
derstood why  we  always  discussed  murders. 
It  came  about  because  I  bought  a  pair  of  shoes 
or,  as  we  should  call  them,  boots.  I  was  wear- 
ing, and  had  been  for  weeks  past,  a  pair 
of  patent-leather  Oxfords  or,  as  we  should 
say,  shoes.  They  were  intolerably  outworn, 
but  they  were  very  comfortable  and  somehow 
I  had  got  it  so  firmly  fixed  into  my  head  that  I 

117 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

could  not  afford  to  buy  any  others,  that  I  just 
went  on  wearing  them,  even  when  I  had  money 
in  my  pocket.  They  cracked  very  badly  —  I 
do  not  blame  their  maker  because  they  were 
never  intended  for  heavy  wear.  They  had 
thirty-eight  large  cracks  —  besides  the  gaping 
abyss  behind  the  left  toe-cap,  which  stood  in  a 
class  by  itself  —  and  a  whole  network  of  little 
ones  —  at  the  time  I  parted  with  them.  I 
dropped  them  into  the  clear  water  of  the 
lagoon  and  three  weeks  later,  when  I  passed 
over  the  same  spot  in  a  motor-launch,  some 
kind  of  a  deep-sea  beast  —  a  hermit  crab,  I  sup- 
pose —  had  made  his  home  in  one  of  them  and 
was  complaining  bitterly  to  his  friends  about 
the  draughts. 

I  should  never  have  bought  the  new  pair  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  small  boy  in  charge  of 
the  store.  It  was  on  the  main  street,  about 
three  blocks  from  the  hotel,  and  it  was  a  little 
store  of  the  kind  that  calls  itself  a  Mammoth 
Emporium.  I  happened  to  look  into  the  win- 
dow in  passing,  and  something  incredibly  red 
caught  my  eye.  I  could  not  be  sure  what  it 
118 


TA  Pair  of  Boots 


was,  and  so  I  went  into  the  store,  and  it  was  a 
small  boy's  head  bent  down  over  a  paper- 
covered  book.  He  looked  up  as  I  came  in, 
and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  I  bought  the 
boots.  They  were  the  best  boots  I  ever 
bought.  I  have  them  now  and  they  are  still  in 
fine  fettle.  They  profess  to  be  made  of  elk- 
skin  and  I  have  no  doubt  they  are  —  and  they 
cost  me  two  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents. 

The  weather  was  glorious  and  the  country 
was  charming  and  I  didn't  feel  like  doing  any 
work  and  I  just  loafed  around.  About  two 
days  after  I  bought  the  new  shoes  I  began  to 
realise  that  I  was  the  object  of  universal, 
though  quite  respectful,  interest.  I  found  it 
impossible  to  be  alone,  wherever  I  went.  If  I 
was  in  a  place  that  no  one  else  had  visited  since 
the  days  of  Captain  Kidd,  I  might  be  sure  that, 
after  I  had  been  there  ten  minutes,  I  should 
run  across  a  whole  band  of  aborigines  —  most 
of  them  young  —  trying  their  very  hardest  to 
look  as  if  they  had  foregathered  by  accident 
and  without  the  remotest  idea  of  finding  me 
there.  It  became  embarrassing  at  last  and  I 

119 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

began  to  think  of  going  back  to  New  York. 
Then,  one  evening,  an  elderly  gentleman  called 
at  the  hotel  and  sent  in  his  name  to  me,  and 
said  that  he  had  been  robbed  of  six  couple,  or 
brace,  or  pair,  whichever  is  the  technical  term, 
of  his  prize  strain  of  Buff  Orpingtons,  and  was 
I  ready  to  take  up  the  case? 

I  discovered  then  that  I  was  a  famous  detect- 
ive, or  "  sleuth,"  disguised,  for  professional 
reasons,  as  an  English  vagabond.  There  had 
been  a  burglary  at  a  country-place  near  Amicus 
and  I  had  been  sent  for  from  New  York  to 
trail  down  the  burglars;  and  that  was  why  I  was 
lounging  around  Amicus,  seeming  to  do  noth- 
ing, but  all  the  while  stretching  my  stupendous 
brain  and  my  super-eagle  eye  to  their  utter- 
most. My  red-headed  young  friend  in  the 
shoe-store  was  the  first  to  discover  me.  He 
was  a  fervent  student  of  the  works  of  that 
greatest  of  all  great  "  sleuths,"  Mr.  Nick 
Carter,  whose  multitudinous  exploits,  re- 
counted in  I  know  not  how  many  hundreds  or 
thousands  of  little  paper-covered  books  at 
fifteen  cents  each,  have  made  him  one  of  the 

1 20 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


most  deservedly  popular  figures  of  the  West- 
ern Continent.  I  have  read  hundreds  of  his 
adventures  myself.  At  one  time  I  had  a  per- 
fect passion  for  them  and  used  to  buy  them  by 
the  half-dozen,  at  a  reduced  price  after  he  had 
read  them  himself,  from  a  news  storekeeper  on 
Sixth  Avenue. 

The  red-headed  boy,  overwhelmed  by  the 
spectacle  of  a  total  stranger  to  Amicus  buying 
a  pair  of  shoes  at  two  dollars  and  seventy-five 
cents,  very  naturally  set  his  wits  to  work  along 
the  lines  suggested  by  his  favourite  hero  and, 
as  naturally,  decided,  from  the  vacuity  of  my 
countenance,  that  I  must  be  a  disguised  de- 
tective. I  am  inclined  to  think  and  to  be 
flattered  by  the  thought  that  he  took  me  for 
Mr.  Carter  himself,  from  the  respect,  almost 
amounting  to  veneration,  with  which  I  was 
treated  by  the  youth  of  Amicus.  I  am  in- 
clined to  fear  also,  that  he  lost,  or  imperilled, 
his  situation  in  the  shoe-store  world,  for,  wher- 
ever and  under  whatever  circumstances  I  might 
become  aware  of  my  respectful  circle  of  ad- 
mirers, there  you  might  be  sure,  blazing  in  the 

121 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

van,  like  the  white  plume  of  King  Henry,  was 
the  scarlet  poll  I  came  to  know  so  well.  I 
think  he  hoped  that  I  might  some  day  give  him 
a  position  in  the  ranks  of  my  assistants;  I  have 
not  the  least  doubt  in  the  world  that  he  it  was 
who  spread  my  fame  in  Amicus. 

I  was  sorely  tempted  to  accept  the  task  of 
trailing  the  lost  Buff  Orpingtons  to  their  lair, 
but  respect  for  the  character  of  the  distin- 
guished gentleman  I  was  representing,  who  I 
was  sure  would  never  have  accepted  a  commis- 
sion so  trivial,  led  me  to  refuse.  Instead, 
I  came  next  morning  to  an  understanding  with 
my  host,  wherein  I  assured  him  that  I  was  no 
sleuth  but  a  simple  vagabond  on  the  look-out 
for  a  job,  and  that  I  should  greatly  value  his 
assistance  in  finding  one. 

I  believe,  although  he  spoke  no  word,  that 
he  was  bitterly  disappointed.  I  know  that  he 
was  perturbed,  because  he  three  times  went 
towards  the  window  and  studied  his  clue  with- 
out once  pausing  to  sit  down  on  the  bed-edge. 
Still  without  speaking,  he  left  the  room  and  I 
saw  no  more  of  him  that  day.  Without  any 
122 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


real  reason  I  felt  as  remorseful  as  though  I  had 
intentionally  deceived  him,  and  sooner  than  face 
his  reproachful  silence  I  decided  to  leave 
Amicus  that  evening.  In  the  end  I  put  it  off 
until  the  next  morning  and  I  was  glad  of  it. 
In  the  first  place  I  received  an  anonymous  let- 
ter, which  I  still  preserve  for  guidance  when  I 
bring  out  my  long-projected  Spelling  Primer. 
It  was  addressed  to  "  Nick  Carter  or  Chick  or 
Patsy  Sleuth."  It  was  written  in  red  ink  and 
sealed,  so  to  put  it,  with  the  representation  of 
a  blood-red  hand  holding  a  scarlet  dagger, 
from  which  dripped  very  realistic  drops  of 
gore.  It  ran  as  follows :  "  You  are  none 
bewair  the  red  hand  is  upon  your  trale  iff  you 
would  escap  yore  liffe  mete  me  disgusd  cor. 
First  and  Vale  Av  at  midnite  i  will  gide  too  a 
place  of  safety  a  frind  who  meanes  you  well." 
It  was  written  in  an  appropriately  unformed 
hand,  girlish  I  am  inclined  to  think,  rather  than 
boyish  and  I  was  delighted  to  receive  it,  if  only 
that  it  proved  that  Young  England  and  Young 
America  are  united  by  bonds  stronger  than 
could  be  forged  by  many  arbitration  treaties. 

123 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

I  have  been  sorry  ever  since  that  it  did  not  at 
the  time  enter  my  head  to  keep  the  appoint- 
ment. I  can  only  hope  that  any  disappoint- 
ment I  unwittingly  caused  was  more  than  out- 
weighed by  the  undoubted  fact  that  I  left  my 
hotel  next  morning;  sufficient  proof,  I  hope,  to 
the  friend  who  meant  me  well  that  his  (or  her) 
warning  had  been  treated  with  proper  respect. 
I  was  compelled  to  leave,  quite  against  my 
will  and  almost  under  physical  compulsion. 
Mine  host  turned  up  at  my  bedside  at  his  usual 
hour,  in  a  state  of  high  excitement,  which  he 
showed  by  adding  to  his  expected  headline 
(on  that  occasion,  "  Clam  Beach.  Gustave 
Olaffson.  Lost  his  help.")  something  about  a 
boat.  Thereafter  he  rushed  to  the  window, 
consulted  his  clue,  returned  at  racing  pace  and 
uttered  the  further  command,  "  Come  right 
now."  He  then  departed  without  further 
words,  but  he  left  me  so  disturbed  by  his  por- 
tentous loquacity  that  I  rose  at  once,  to  find 
him  awaiting  me  at  the  stair-foot,  as  though  he 
feared  I  might  otherwise  escape  him.  He  al- 
lowed me  but  little  time  for  my  breakfast;  and 

124 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


then,  hooking  his  arm  in  mine,  led  me  away 
with  him  as  might  Mr.  Carter  a  defaulting 
cashier. 

Thus  personally  conducted  I  arrived  some 
half-hour  later,  before  a  little  wooden  shanty 
on  Clam  Beach.  Clam  Beach  itself  was  a  kind 
of  holiday  annexe  to  Amicus  —  a  tiny  settle- 
ment on  the  long,  sandy  barrier  reef  that 
guards  the  southern  shores  of  Long  Island. 
There  were  perhaps  twenty  wooden  bungalows 
and  a  ramshackle  hotel,  and  Mr.  Olaffson's 
bathing  establishment;  and  they  were  all  con- 
nected, like  captured  flies  on  a  cobweb,  by 
single  planks  across  the  sand-dunes.  You  got 
to  it  from  Amicus  by  a  crazy  old  motor-launch 
across  the  shallowest,  clearest  of  lagoons. 

Mr.  Olaffson's  establishment  was  set  on  a 
sand-dune  midway  between  the  Ocean  and  the 
lagoon.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  by  the  way,  that 
what  Is  referred  to  as  the  sea  in  England  is 
always  known  in  America  as  the  Ocean.  It  is 
just  the  same  old  Atlantic  at  Long  Island  as 
it  is  at  the  Land's  End,  but  when  an  American 
talks  about  it  you  can  see  it  swelling  itself  out 

125 


fA  Vagabond  in  New  York 

with  pride  and  bridling  with  pleasure.  It  is 
the  same  with  most  natural  things  somehow. 
If  you  took  an  English  hill  over  to  America, 
and  set  it  down  all  small  and  humble-minded  in 
a  field,  by  the  time  it  woke  up  next  morning  it 
would  be  a  Mountain,  with  all  the  appropriate 
airs  and  graces,  boasting  of  its  cousins  the 
Rockies  and  speaking  pityingly  of  the  Hima- 
layas because,  being  Asiatics,  they  can  never  be- 
come naturalised  American  citizens.  I  have 
been  told,  though  I  do  not  vouch  for  it,  that 
when  the  moon  —  the  same  old  moon  that  we 
have  in  England  —  looks  down  on  America 
she  calls  herself  a  Planet  and  not  a  satellite  at 
all.  It  has  something  to  do  with  the  atmo- 
sphere, I  suppose. 

Mr.  Olaffson  was  a  very,  very  old  man  and 
he  really  wanted  a  help  or,  as  we  should  say, 
an  assistant.  He  was  much  too  old  to  do  any- 
thing but  sit  outside  his  castle  in  the  sunlight, 
smoking  and  cursing  under  his  breath.  I  say 
cursing,  because  it  sounded  like  it,  though  he 
was  really  a  very  amiable  person,  and  we  got  on 
famously.  Out  of  the  kindness  of  his  heart 
126 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


my  friend  Mr.  Godly  assured  him  that  I  spoke 
Swedish  perfectly.  It  was  a  safe  enough  asser- 
tion because,  although  Mr.  Olaffson  was  a 
Swede  all  right,  he  had  been  in  America  so 
many  centuries  that  he  had  quite  forgotten 
Swedish.  He  had  never  succeeded  in  learning 
more  than  three  words  of  American  either,  and 
he  could  not  master  the  meaning  even  of  them. 
So  we  used  to  communicate  by  signs. 

The  Castle,  as  I  called  it  —  a  name  which  I 
am  told  it  has  ever  since  retained  —  was  a 
wooden  building  that  was  a  cross  between  a 
barn  and  a  mediaeval  gate-house.  There  was 
a  big  room  on  top,  where  bathing  suits  and 
towels  and  things  were  stored,  and  a  little  one 
below  on  each  side  where  Mr.  Olaffson  and  I 
slept,  and  another  big  one  in  the  middle  that 
was  more  a  corridor  than  a  room,  with  a  huge 
door  at  either  end.  Through  it  you  reached 
the  bathing-boxes.  They  stood  round  a  yard 
or  compound  and  they  were  arranged  in  the 
shape  of  a  big  M,  one  wing  for  women  and  the 
other  for  men.  The  boxes  themselves  were 
about  the  size  and  shape  of  roomy  coffins,  with 
127 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

a  little  scat  inside,  and  besides  being  bathing- 
boxes  they  acted  as  incubators  for  sand-flies. 
I  believe  myself  that  all  the  sand-flies  of  Long 
Island  looked  upon  our  compound  as  their  ter- 
restrial Paradise.  They  used  to  settle  there 
in  millions  and  bring  up  their  families  and  wait 
for  visitors.  It  was  very  shrewd  of  them,  be- 
cause, by  the  time  a  bather  was  undressed,  the 
superficial  area  of  their  food-supply  was  in- 
creased I  don't  know  how  many  fold,  com- 
pared with  what  it  was  either  before  he  got 
out  of  his  ordinary  clothes  or  after  he  was  in 
his  bathing-suit.  Evidently,  too,  they  liked  the 
flavour  of  women  better  than  men,  perhaps 
because  they  smoke  less,  for  there  were  always 
three  times  as  many  in  the  women's  wing  and 
they  looked  healthier  and  bit  more  blithely. 

Although  Clam  Beach  was  a  delightful  place 
in  its  way  and  the  bathing  glorious,  it  was  not 
the  kind  of  work  I  really  cared  about,  and  I 
should  never  have  taken  it  on  but  that  I  hated 
the  thought  of  hurting  Mr.  Godly's  feelings. 
There  has  been  always  something  repulsive  to 
me  in  the  feel  of  a  dank,  cold,  limp  bathing- 

128 


A  Pair  of  Boots 


suit  after  it  has  been  used  and  is  all  covered 
with  sand.  When  I  had  to  deal  with  dozens 
and  dozens  of  them,  they  grew  more  and  more 
repulsive,  and  I  got  to  feel  like  a  rheumatic 
ghoul  condemned  to  work  in  a  damp  cemetery. 
Mr.  Olaffson's  company  was  not  inspiring 
either.  The  visitors  were  always  nice  enough 
to  me  and  their  ideas  about  tips  compared  more 
than  favourably  with  those  prevalent  in  Eng- 
lish sea-side  resorts,  and  if  I  had  stopped  on  I 
might  have  had  a  castle  of  my  own  by  this  time. 
But  the  heat  of  the  summer  was  waning  and  I 
felt  the  call  of  the  city  again,  and  one  morning 
I  ran  away  and  took  the  first  train  back  to 
New  York.  I  felt  I  couldn't  face  Mr.  Godly, 
so  I  sent  him  a  message  to  say  I  had  been 
called  away  on  urgent  business  and  that  some- 
day I  was  coming  back  again.  I  am  going,  too, 
whenever  I  get  the  chance,  because  I  have 
nothing  but  pleasant  memories  of  Amicus  and 
there  are  very  few  places  of  which  I  can  say 
that. 


129 


CHAPTER  XII 

"Seeing  New  York" 


THE  millionaire  baby,  before  and  after 
birth,  is  an  important  asset  to  the 
social  life  of  New  York.  I  do  not 
mean  only  to  people  in  the  same  station  of  life 
to  which  he  has  been  called,  but  to  quite  a  lot 
of  low  vulgar  common  folk,  myself  among 
them.  Three  —  or  it  may  have  been  four  — 
millionaire  babies  —  two  of  them  unborn  — 
provided  me  with  two  solid  weeks  of  lucrative 
work  on  my  return  from  A'micus,  and  it  was 
only  through  my  ungrateful  neglect  of  them 
that  I  lost  it. 

As  I  walked  out  of  the  Pennsylvania  Ter- 
minus I  suddenly  realised  that  I  was  the  victim 
of  a  bad  attack  of  ambition.  For  one  thing,  I 
had  over  twenty  dollars  in  my  pocket;  for  an- 
other, I  had  quite  a  presentable  suit  of  clothes 

130 


"Seeing  New  York" 


—  so  long  as  I  stood  in  the  shadow  and  hid  my 
knees  and  my  shoulder-blades  behind  some- 
thing. I  bought  the  suit  second-hand  when  I 
was  a  Hindu  magician,  and  the  vendor  assured 
me  that  he  could  guarantee  it,  as  he  had  worn 
it  for  five  years  and  it  had  never  flinched. 

I  took  a  hall-room  on  West  Forty-fourth 
Street,  and  by  some  marvellous  good  luck  the 
coloured  lady  who  answered  the  door,  when  she 
felt  like  it,  was  rather  struck  by  me  —  and  I 
escaped  having  to  pay  a  deposit  beforehand. 
I  was  rather  struck  by  the  coloured  lady,  too  — 
especially  when  she  supposed  I  was  English, 
made  a  casual  remark  about  "  damn  Yankees," 
and  told  me  she  was  English  herself.  She 
said  that  children  of  the  Empire  on  which  the 
sun  never  sets  should  stand  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der. She  asked  me  if  I  came  from  London, 
and,  when  I  said  I  did,  she  rather  thought  we 
might  be  cousins,  because  she  was  born  in 
Brixton  herself.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had 
washed  quite  hard  that  morning,  but  I  only 
said  it  was  very  likely  indeed. 

It  was  through  Cousin  Euphemia  that  I  be- 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

came  a  guide-lecturer.  It  was  quite  by  acci- 
dent, too;  if  I  had  had  enough  money  left  at 
the  end  of  the  third  week  to  pay  my  bill,  I 
should  very  likely  be  looking  for  work  now.  I 
tried  hard  to  get  a  clerkship  or  something  that 
would  live  up  to  my  clothes,  but  I  don't  sup- 
pose I  went  the  right  way  about  it.  I  an- 
swered advertisements,  but  somehow,  as  soon 
as  I  had  found  the  place  and  screwed  up  my 
courage  to  go  in  and  ask  about  the  job,  I  used 
to  get  turned  out.  I  don't  mean  physically. 
I  used  to  be  taken  into  a  room  where  there  was 
a  wooden  desk  and  a  man  sitting  behind  it  with 
a  face  that  had  been  carved  out  of  the  same 
piece  of  wood.  Before  I  could  say  anything 
he  would  look  at  me  and  say,  "  Nop,"  and  go 
on  with  what  he  was  doing.  It  never  varied. 
In  the  end  I  got  desperate,  and  I  went  to  one 
of  the  big  office-buildings  on  Broadway  and  I 
tried  every  office  in  it.  There  was  always  the 
same  man  and  the  same  desk,  and  he  always 
looked  at  me  and  said,  "  Nop  " —  all  the  way 
down  from  the  eighteenth  floor  to  the  ground. 
After  that  I  lost  interest  and  went  down  to  the 

132 


"Seeing  New  York" 


Battery  and  watched  the  liners  on  their  way  to 
England. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  week  I  only  had  two 
dollars  towards  the  five  I  owed.  I  told  Cousin 
Euphemia  about  it,  and  she  suggested  that 
I  should  be  a  guide-lecturer.  She  told  me  of  a 
firm  on  Broadway,  and  I  got  a  recommenda- 
tion from  my  friend  Dempsey,  the  policeman, 
in  which  he  very  kindly  said  I  was  his  brother, 
and  so  I  got  the  job.  I  used  to  drive  about  on 
a  motor  char-a-banc,  a  long,  sloping  arrange- 
ment like  those  you  see  in  London  in  the  sum- 
mer. I  had  a  megaphone  and  explained  the 
sights  in  a  loud  voice.  New  York  isn't  half  a 
bad  place,  but  it  is  deficient  in  sights,  and  if  it 
wasn't  for  the  millionaire  babies  I  am  afraid 
I  should  have  sometimes  had  to  invent  things. 
Fortunately,  though,  the  country  tripper  who 
comes  to  New  York  doesn't  care  about  sights 
as  we  understand  them  in  England  —  unless 
they  are  very  expensive.  My  most  popular 
tour  used  to  start  by  passing  the  Waldorf 
Hotel.  We  used  to  stop  there  while  I  told 
them  what  was  the  annual  income  of  the  guests 

133 


Vagabond  in  New  York 


who  put  up  there,  and  how  much  the  ladies  In 
the  Peacock  Parade  spent  on  diamonds  for 
their  shoe-heels,  and  that  sort  of  thing.  I  am 
no  good  at  figures,  and  I  expect  they  varied 
sometimes,  but  my  clients  were  always  satis- 
fied. Then  we  used  to  take  them  to  Saint 
Patrick's  Cathedral.  They  didn't  trouble  to 
go  inside,  of  course,  but  we  stopped  for  a  min- 
ute or  two  while  I  told  them  what  the  site  cost, 
and  the  average  value  of  the  jewels  in  the  copes 
and  things  worn  by  the  clergy.  Then  we  went 
on  up  Fifth  Avenue  to  where  the  babies  lived. 
Luckily  for  me  there  was  quite  a  glut  of  them 
at  that  time.  When  we  passed  a  likely  look- 
ing house  —  you  can  always  tell,  because  mil- 
lionaire architecture  reminds  you  of  a  new 
restaurant  in  Leicester  Square  —  we  used  to 
pull  up  while  I  explained,  through  the  mega- 
phone, that  we  were  opposite  the  princely 
home  of  Mr.  Potiphar  J.  Scrawlenfeldt, 
whose  income  was  so  many  millions  a  week, 
and  who  had  spent  so  many  billions  on  the 
house  and  so  many  on  the  furniture,  and  had 
married  the  daughter  of  so  many  more,  and 

134 


I  had  a  megaphone  and  explained  the  sights  in  a  loud  voice. 


"Seeing  New  York' 


was  expecting  a  son  in  about  three  weeks,  who 
would  be  heir  to  so  many  trillions.  I  was 
rather  successful. 

We  weren't  the  only  sightseers  by  any 
means.  Sometimes  there  would  be  half-a-dozen 
cars  at  once,  stopping  opposite  one  man- 
sion, each  with  a  megaphone  going,  which 
made  things  cheerful  for  the  expectant  mother. 
If  I  had  been  her  I  think  I  should  have  felt 
embarrassed,  but  in  New  York  she  gets  to  look 
for  it,  and  sometimes  she  would  appear  at  a 
window  by  accident  amid  the  cheers  of  the  rub- 
berers,  and  the  booming  of  the  megaphones,  and 
the  clicking  of  the  living-picture  cameras.  As 
I  said,  I  was  rather  successful  and  I  am  not  at 
all  sure  that  I  had  not  really  found  my  occu- 
pation in  life  if  only  my  success  hadn't  resulted 
in  a  bad  attack  of  swelled  head.  There  is  one 
bit  of  Manhattan  where  there  really  are  some 
sights,  as  we  of  the  old  world  understand  them. 
Between  Wall  Street  —  where  the  old  wall 
stood  in  the  Dutch  days  —  and  the  nose  of  the 
island  there  are  a  lot  of  quaint  streets  and  one 
or  two  old  houses  —  seventeenth-century  sort 

i35 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

of  style  —  with  a  certain  amount  of  old-world 
feeling  about  them  that,  in  my  insular  preju- 
dice, I  thought  would  make  up  a  good  lec- 
ture. I  got  my  proprietor  to  try  sending  a 
car  round  there  for  a  change,  and  rashly  guar- 
anteed that  I  could  make  a  success  of  it.  I 
couldn't.  On  my  fourth  trip  I  only  had  two 
rubberers,  and  they  were  both  furious  because 
I  didn't  show  them  where  the  Bilkheimer  baby 
was  expected.  They  complained  when  we  got 
back.  The  boss  told  me  I  was  too  intellectual 
—  only  he  didn't  put  it  quite  so  nicely  —  and  I 
had  to  leave. 


136 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A  Turn  at  Starving 


IF  we  had  always  to  eat  the  same  food  I 
suppose  we  should  never  eat  anything.  I 
know  at  least  that  quite  the  worst  aspect 
of  starvation  is  its  monotony;  there  is  nothing 
else  anywhere  that  can  equal  it  in  lack  of  in- 
cident. After  I  lost  my  job  as  a  guide-lec- 
turer I  had  a  run  of  really  bad  luck,  and  I 
learnt  the  whole  philosophy  of  starvation  at 
first  hand.  I  was  not  a  bit  well,  to  start  with. 
If  I  had  been  moving  in  a  more  exalted  sphere 
I  suppose  I  should  have  said  I  had  a  nervous 
breakdown.  As  it  was,  I  could  only  call  it  an 
absolute  lack  of  energy,  or  moral  force,  or 
something  of  that  sort,  that  gave  me  an  infinite 
distaste  for  doing  anything  at  all.  Unkind 
people  might  call  it  sheer  laziness;  but  it  was 
not  that.  On  the  contrary,  I  used  to  have 
137 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

terrific  fits  of  energy;  but  they  always  tailed 
away  just  at  the  moment  when  they  began  to 
produce  results.  I  used  to  spend  hours  work- 
ing out  great  schemes  towards  this,  that  or  the 
other  mighty  end,  and  then  dropping  them. 
Very  naturally  they  none  of  them  came  to  any- 
thing and  I  came  to  real  starvation. 

There  is  only  one  good  thing  about  starving; 
the  longer  it  lasts  the  less  it  hurts.  The  first 
day  is  the  worst  —  because  your  mind  feels  it 
most.  If  ever  I  wanted  to  start  a  Terror,  I 
should  pick  only  men  who  had  starved  abso- 
lutely for  twenty-four  hours.  After  that  you 
begin  to  lose  interest. 

I  had  to  leave  my  hall-room  —  which  corre- 
sponds to  an  attic  in  London,  though  it  is  really 
a  little  room  fitted  in  over  the  entrance  hall  — 
after  the  first  week.  I  left  it  with  thirty-five 
cents  in  my  pocket  and  the  well-wishes  of  my 
coloured  cousin  Euphemia.  I  husbanded  my 
fortune,  but  it  did  not  last  long;  New  York  is 
an  expensive  city.  I  couldn't  get  a  job;  I 
knew  nobody  who  could  help  me  towards  one; 
even  my  friend  Dempsey  was  absent  from  his 

138 


A  Turn  at  Starving 


usual  beat.  I  was  absurdly  ignorant  about 
charities.  They  exist,  of  course,  by  dozens, 
but  I  didn't  know  of  them.  If  any  one  who 
reads  this  wants  to  start  a  charity,  let  him  estab- 
lish one  for  strangers,  without  regard  to  their 
deserts,  and  let  him  advertise  its  whereabouts 
by  huge  posters,  so  that  any  poor  devil  can  find 
it.  He  mustn't  ask  any  questions  either.  I 
have  no  doubt  a  native  New  Yorker  —  as,  in 
London,  a  native  Londoner  —  would  know  ex- 
actly where  to  find  a  free  meal  and  have  a  dozen 
excellent  reasons  for  getting  it.  I  didn't,  and 
there  are  many  thousands  like  me.  While  I 
had  sufficient  energy  left  to  inquire,  I  had  suffi- 
cient to  look  for  a  job,  and  when  that  was  gone 
I  was  past  inquiring.  I  did  have  some  vague 
idea  of  appealing  to  the  British  Consul.  I 
even  went  to  look  for  him,  but  when  I  found 
the  place  —  down  by  the  Battery,  at  the  cor- 
ner of  Whitehall  Street,  I  think  it  is  —  it  was 
so  shabby  and  had  so  dirty  an  entrance  that  I 
didn't  go  in.  This  sounds  absurd  enough,  but 
it  is  true.  That  was  the  third  day  of  my  fast, 
and  I  suppose  I  was  getting  fanciful. 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

The  first  day,  as  I  say,  my  mind  suffered 
most.  I  stormed  and  raved  inwardly  at  every 
one  who  looked  as  if  he  had  enough  money  on 
him  for  the  next  meal.  The  second  day  my 
body  suffered.  I  had  the  most  horrible  indi- 
gestion sort  of  cramps  —  exactly  as  if  I  had 
eaten  too  much.  I  remember  thinking  how 
unfair  it  was.  The  third  day  both  mind  and 
body  suffered,  only  less  acutely.  I  was  fool 
enough  to  eat  something  on  the  fourth.  A 
bench  neighbour  —  a  working  man  who  had 
got  drunk  over  night  and  had  a  black  eye,  and 
was  afraid  to  go  home  and  face  his  wife  — 
gave  me  a  quarter,  and  I  spent  twenty  cents  of 
it  on  food,  most  of  it  on  corned  (or,  as  we 
should  say,  salt)  beef  hash.  It  made  me  quite 
horribly  ill  —  until  I  was  mercifully  sick,  after 
which  I  felt  better.  I  spent  the  remaining  five 
cents  upon  cigarettes  —  they  were  called 
"  Hassans," —  ten  of  them.  I  don't  know  who 
made  them,  but  here  is  an  unsolicited  testi- 
monial: I  never  enjoyed  anything  so  much  in 
my  life.  Like  a  fool,  I  smoked  them  all  right 
off  on  end,  with  no  thought  for  the  morrow, 
140 


A  Turn  at  Starving 


and  I  felt  uncommonly  ill  afterwards  for  the 
second  time.  I  was  beyond  caring  about  things 
much. 

Past  the  Battery  Park,  at  the  very  nose  of 
the  island  of  Manhattan,  are  the  big  termini 
from  which  the  ferry  boats  start  for  Brooklyn 
and  Staten  Island  and  other  suburbs.  There  is 
an  iron  gallery  beside  one  of  them,  approached 
by  a  long  flight  of  steps,  where  you  can  stand 
and  watch  all  the  shipping  coming  up  and  down 
the  harbour.  I  found  it  out  by  accident,  the 
day  I  was  looking  for  the  Consulate  —  and  I 
got  into  the  way  of  going  there  and  watching 
out  for  ships  that  flew  the  Union  Jack.  There 
were  three  of  them  to  one  of  any  other  flag, 
and  somehow  it  did  me  a  lot  of  good.  I  felt 
quite  a  ridiculous  amount  of  pride  in  the 
thought  that  there  was  still  something  in  the 
world  in  which  I  had  some  little  share.  I  ex- 
pect I  should  have  pawned  my  share  just  then 
if  it  had  had  any  cash  value,  but  the  feeling  was 
there  all  the  same. 

On  the  sixth  day  I  was  feeling  thoroughly 
content  —  in  a  sort  of  dreamy  haze  in  whicH 
141 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

nothing  mattered  in  all  this  world  or  the  next. 
I  slept  on  a  bench  in  the  Battery  Park.  It 
rained  a  little  and  I  got  wet,  but  was  too  lazy 
to  move  in  under  the  shelter  of  the  Elevated, 
and  I  saw  the  Olympic,  I  think  it  was,  going 
out,  and  followed  her  with  my  eyes  all  the  way 
until  she  got  lost  in  the  mist  somewhere  by 
Staten  Island,  and  gloried  to  myself  that  she 
was  the  biggest  boat  in  the  world  and  English. 
Then  I  took  it  into  my  head  to  walk  round  the 
path  between  the  little  park  and  the  water's 
edge,  where  the  excursion  steamers  start.  It 
was  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

The  excursion  boats  are  very  popular  in  the 
warm  weather,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
competition  among  them,  and  they  all  have 
runners  out  to  catch  the  unwary  tripper  who 
hasn't  quite  made  up  his  mind.  I  was  mooning 
along,  thinking  about  nothing  at  all,  when  there 
came  a  little  spirtle  of  wind  from  the  water 
and  something  slapped  me  across  the  eyes.  I 
grabbed  at  it,  and  it  was  a  dollar  bill.  I  saw 
then  that  it  must  have  come  from  one  of  the 
ticket  touts,  who  stand  about  with  tickets  in 
142 


A  Turn  at  Starving 


one  hand,  ready  to  sell,  and  bunches  of  dollars 
in  the  other,  to  show  what  good  business  they 
are  doing  and  how  popular  their  boats  are. 

I  suppose  if  I  had  thought  about  it  I  should 
have  stuck  to  that  greenback,  but  the  habit  of 
instinctive  honesty  is  difficult  to  throw  off. 
Anyway,  I  took  it  to  its  proper  owner.  He 
was  a  large  red  Jew,  but  a  white  man  all  the 
same.  I  must  have  looked  like  a  second-class 
pirate;  I  hadn't  shaved  or  washed,  or  had  my 
clothes  off,  for  a  week,  and  I  think  I  was  a  bit 
unsteady  in  my  walk  by  that  time.  But  either 
he  was  amazed  at  my  honesty  or  he  saw  I 
looked  rather  faded;  anyhow,  he  took  me  in 
and  did  for  me.  He  made  me  sit  down  on  a 
bench  and  wait  until  he  was  off  duty,  and  then 
he  stood  me  a  meal  —  a  sensible  meal,  only 
hot  soup  to  begin  with  —  and  a  wash  and  a 
shave.  And,  by  the  way,  whoever  starts  my 
ideal  stranger's  charity  should  provide  it  with 
free  baths  and  washing  accommodation  and 
free  shaving.  How  any  man  who  looks  as  I 
did,  dirty  and  ragged,  and  with  a  week-old 
beard  on  his  face,  and  the  smell  —  for  even 

H3 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

the  cleanest  of  us  are  unpleasant  after  we  have 
worn  our  clothes  for  a  week  consecutively  — 
how  he  can  be  expected  to  find  work,  or  to  have 
the  heart  to  look  for  it,  is  past  my  compre- 
hension. There  ought  to  be  free  collars  and 
cuffs  provided,  too,  even  if  they  are  only  made 
of  paper;  nothing  improves  a  man's  chances  so 
much  as  wearing  a  clean  collar.  The  coat 
doesn't  matter  nearly  so  much. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  my  Jewish 
friend  got  me  a  berth  on  the  Lake  Island  boats 
— •  as  I  will  call  them  —  to  go  round  among 
the  passengers  and  take  orders  for  beer. 
Afterwards,  when  a  vacancy  fell  in,  I  might 
look  forward  to  acting  as  bar-man  in  a  curious 
little  horseshoe  bar  tucked  away  between  the 
paddle-wheels.  I  had  a  white  coat  and  a  clean 
face,  and  I  bought  myself  a  dandy  yachting 
cap,  and  altogether  if  I  had  met  myself  of  a 
week  before  I  shouldn't  have  cared  to  be  seen 
speaking  to  me.  That  was  the  worst  week  I 
spent  in  New  York,  and  I  don't  want  another 
like  it  anywhere. 


144 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  CUld  Terrible 


I  SOMETIMES  wonder  whether  London 
or  New  York  has  most  to  complain  of, 
in  the  way  of  reputation.  If  you  believe 
the  accounts  of  the  untravelled  American,  who 
has  not  been  there,  London  is  a  chaotic  dust- 
heap,  only  rendered  tolerable  by  the  fact 
that  constant  fogs  prevent  your  seeing  it. 
New  York  again  is  revealed  to  the  unseeing 
eyes  of  the  English  world  as  a  wilderness  of 
impossibly  tall  skyscrapers,  divided  up  into  ex- 
actly regular  blocks,  and  peopled  by  hurrying 
hordes  who  dash  madly  about  rectilinearly, 
overturning  each  other  without  shame  in  the 
race  for  wealth. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  except  for  a  few  out- 
lying examples,  the  skyscrapers  of  New  York 
are  all  bunched  up  together  in  a  space  very 
US 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

much  smaller  than  the  One  Square  Mile,  and  the 
rest  of  the  city  is  a  cross  between  Bloomsbury 
and  Berlin.  So  much  for  the  works  of  Man; 
Nature  has  given  it  a  setting  so  gracious  that 
not  all  mankind  working  for  eternity  will  ever 
be  able  to  make  it  anything  less  than  beautiful. 
And  its  greatest  beauties  are  concentrated 
about  its  waterways.  The  best  way  to  see 
New  York  is  by  steamer  and  the  only  draw- 
back is  that  in  that  case  you  can  scarcely  avoid 
the  huge  advertisement  sign,  set  out  in  enor- 
mous letters  in  front  of  Brooklyn,  which  tells 
you  that  a  certain  Hungarian  mineral  water  is 
invaluable  for  stomachic  complaints.  I  have 
bowdlerised  it  considerably,  but  such  is  its 
general  message.  It  is  at  least  as  blatant  to 
the  eye  of  incoming  steamship  passengers  as  is 
the  statue  of  Liberty.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is 
out  of  place.  Liberty  and  stomachic  com- 
plaints are  certainly  the  keynotes  of  American 
life;  and  whoever  arranged  that  the  Liberty 
Statue  should  stand  with  her  back  to  America, 
looking  towards  Europe  with  a  hopeful  expres- 
146 


The  Child  Terrible 


sion,  as  though  watching  out  for  a  really  re- 
liable liver-pill,  knew  his  country. 

As  has  been  said  of  Manchester,  one  of  the 
best  features  of  New  York  is  the  ease  with 
which  you  can  get  away  from  it.  It  has  a 
service  of  excursion  steamers  to  everywhere 
that  could  not  be  bettered  anywhere  in  the 
world,  despite  a  tendency  to  explode  at  odd 
moments.  You  can  go  by  steamer  to  I  know 
not  how  many  ports  and  towns  and  pleasure 
resorts  at  whatever  distance  you  prefer;  you 
can  go  for  very  little  indeed,  and  you  may  be 
sure  that  wherever  you  go  you  will  thoroughly 
enjoy  the  voyage. 

The  steamer  on  which  I  sold  beer  for  a  time 
was  called,  let  us  say,  the  Jane  McCracken, 
and  plied  between  the  Battery  and  Lake 
Island,  which  is  a  pleasant  summer  resort  in 
the  State  of  New  York,  about  thirty  miles  by 
water  from  the  City,  and  looking  over  the 
Sound  which  divides  Long  Island  from  the  con- 
tinent. It  is  a  very  popular  voyage  and  very 
rightly,  for  even  I,  who  had  to  make  the  trip 

147 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

twice  a  day  in  the  way  of  duty,  enjoyed  it 
thoroughly,  embarrassed  though  I  was  by  a 
tray  of  ice-cream  cornucopias,  a  collection  of 
beer-glasses,  or  a  load  of  pop-corn,  according  to 
circumstances. 

I  know  no  better  way  of  getting  acquainted 
with  a  people  than  by  studying  them  at  their 
pleasures,  and  I  would  defy  any  one  to  study 
the  New  York  populace,  as  exemplified  by 
travellers  on  the  Lake  Island  Line,  without  lik- 
ing them.  They  were  not  so  well  disciplined, 
in  the  way  of  queues  and  crowding,  as  would 
be,  say,  a  Bank  Holiday  mob  in  London;  they 
were  at  least  as  kindly  and  very  much  more  so- 
ciable. Thanks,  I  suppose,  to  the  large  pro- 
portion of  Jews  among  them,  the  Lake  Island 
trippers  were  more  patriarchally  gregarious 
than  are  the  Londoners.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  there  was  not  a  fair  percentage  of  de- 
tached couples;  but  for  the  most  part  they 
tripped  in  family  batches,  grandfather  and 
grandmother,  father  and  mother,  four  assorted 
aunts  and  uncles,  and,  say,  three  hobbledehoys 
and  as  many  flappers  —  or,  as  New  York  has 

148 


The  Child  Terrible 


it,  "  broilers  " —  each  provided  with  an  ap- 
propriate sweetheart,  and  courting  under  the 
maternal  eye  with  a  determined  earnestness  only 
to  be  equalled  by  the  couples  on  the  benches  in> 
Hyde  Park  of  a  Sunday  evening.  Then,  of 
course,  there  were  the  children  —  shoals  of 
them.  Professionally  speaking,  the  children 
were  the  most  welcome  of  all  our  patrons,  in 
that  they  had  an  insatiable  appetite  for  ice- 
cream, which  I  vended,  arranged  in  little 
cornucopias  of  wafer  at  five  cents  each.  Their 
elders,  on  the  other  hand,  not  infrequently 
brought  their  own  viands,  and  were  as  such  less 
desirable,  seeing  that  I  was  partly  paid  by  a 
percentage  on  the  receipts. 

We  were  not,  of  course,  confined  to  tripper 
traffic.  We  had  a  large  number  of  regular 
passengers,  living  in  and  around  New  Rochelle 
and  similar  suburban  centres,  who  used  our  boat 
as  the  pleasantest  link  with  New  York.  Some 
of  them  I  got  to  know  very  well,  and  especially 
Helga,  who  was  at  once  the  wickedest  and  the 
most  fascinating  little  minx  I  ever  knew. 

Actually  I  know  very  little  about  her,  as  she 
149 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

would  vary  her  information  about  herself  ac- 
cording to  her  mood  of  the  moment.  I  call 
her  Helga  because  such  was  the  first  name  she 
mentioned  to  me,  but  she  called  herself  by 
quite  a  number  of  others,  according  as  she 
thought  them  momentarily  desirable.  So  with 
her  age;  at  different  times  she  told  me  that  she 
was  five,  seven,  eight,  nine,  ten  and  even  once, 
sixteen,  which  I  did  not  believe.  She  was  an 
uncommonly  pretty  monkey  with  a  fresh  little 
face,  full  of  deviltry,  a  mop  of  golden  hair, 
and  very  long,  slim,  black  legs,  which  were  I 
think  her  most  characteristic  feature.  She 
made  love  to  me  most  scandalously,  from  the 
first  time  that  she  saw  me  with  my  ice-cream 
tray;  and  thereafter  whenever  she  was  aboard 
paid  me,  or  it,  unending  breathless  court.  She 
had  an  exceedingly  comfortable-looking  papa 
and  a  very  pretty  mamma,  whom  I  used  to  ob- 
serve gazing  at  her  with  languid  surprise  as 
though  wondering  how  she  could  be  responsible 
for  such  a  bantling.  She  would  refer  to  her 
father  in  casual  conversation  as  "  the  Man  " 
and  considerably  embarrassed  me,  upon  our 

150 


She  made  love  to  me  from  the  first  time  she  saw  me  with 
my  ice-cream   tray. 


The  Child  Terrible 


second  meeting,  by  leading  me,  tray  and  all, 
up  to  her  mother  and  demanding  loudly,  "  Isn't 
she  perfectly  sweet?  " 

I  mention  her  with  some  particularity,  firstly 
because  I  fell  desperately  in  love  with  her,  and 
secondly  because  she  was,  directly,  the  cause 
of  my  very  narrowly  escaping  drowning  and, 
indirectly,  of  my  losing  my  employment.  At 
Lake  Island,  our  terminus,  the  boat  used  to  be 
made  fast  to  an  ornamental  pier-head  in  a  tiny 
bay,  into  and  out  of  which  it  had  to  back  with 
unusual  care.  On  one  occasion  while  it  was 
backing  towards  the  pier  I  happened  to  be 
standing  beside  the  Monkey  on  a  little  plat- 
form just  abaft  the  paddle-box.  In  the  usual 
way  it  was  protected  by  an  iron  railing,  but 
that  had  been  removed,  in  readiness  for  land- 
ing. The  Monkey,  whose  chief  joy  was  to 
arouse  her  seniors'  fears  by  pushing  herself 
into  dangerous  positions,  managed  in  some  way 
to  drop  overboard  a  large  model  of  a  torpedo- 
boat  with  which  her  father  had  that  day  dow- 
ered her.  I  daresay  it  was  an  excellent  model, 
but  it  was  no  swimmer  and  promptly  disap- 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

peared  in  the  foam  from  the  starboard  paddle. 
About  to  burst  into  a  scream  of  anguish,  the 
Monkey,  presuming  as  usual,  upon  my  devo- 
tion, changed  her  mind  and  ordered  me,  with 
her  most  fascinating  moue,  to  jump  overboard 
after  it.  I  declined.  Thereupon,  with  the 
calm  remark,  "  Then  perhaps  you  will  jump 
after  me/'  she  promptly  leapt  after  her  toy  into 
the  water.  Drowning  is  a  death  after  which 
I  have  no  sort  of  hankering  and  I  was  about 
to  turn  on  my  heel,  in  order  to  acquaint  the 
captain  with  the  loss  of  one  of  his  passengers, 
when  my  foot  somehow  slipped  and  I  followed 
her.  Once  in  the  water  there  seemed  no  par- 
ticular reason  why  I  should  not  so  far  assist 
the  imp  as  to  guide  her  away  from  the  paddle- 
blades,  which  were  twirling  about  in  the  air 
just  over  and  unpleasantly  close  to  our  heads. 
I  have  an  impression  that  the  water  was  not 
more  than  three  or  four  feet  deep.  However 
that  may  be,  we  scrambled  ashore,  without  dam- 
age, except  to  my  temper,  in  about  a  minute; 
whereafter  ensued  a  scene  of  which  I  cannot 
think  even  now,  without  a  blush  of  reminiscent 
152 


The  Child  Terrible 


shame.  There  happened  to  be  a  clergyman  on 
board  and  a  reporter  —  it  would  be  amazing  if 
there  had  not  been,  in  a  country  where  both  are 
so  common  —  and  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the 
horrid  orgy  that  ensued.  I  did  not  see  most 
of  it,  because  I  was  engaged  in  borrowing  dry 
clothes  from  the  rest  of  the  crew,  but  by  the 
time  I  got  on  deck  again  the  clergyman  had 
arrived  at  Fourthly;  and  the  reporter,  having 
interviewed  all  the  passengers,  the  crew  and 
the  pier  officials,  was  discussing  with  the  cap- 
tain the  possibility  of  having  the  affair  re-en- 
acted before  the  cinematograph  machine  he 
proposed  to  rush  down  from  New  York  by 
automobile. 

You  will  understand  that  there  was  only  one 
thing  to  be  done.  My  borrowed  plumes  for- 
tunately proved  sufficient  disguise;  a  trolley-car 
was  about  to  start  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ferry;  in  half-an-hour  I  was  in  New  Rochelle 
and  in  another  ninety  minutes  or  so  I  was  back 
in  New  York,  a  workless  wanderer  once  more. 
I  cannot  say  how  sorry  I  was.  I  was  quite  ab- 
surdly fond  of  the  Monkey,  and  apart  from  her, 

153 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

I  was  very  happy  on  the  Jane  McCracken.  I 
have  knocked  about  the  world  a  good  deal  in 
my  time,  but  I  do  not  know  when  I  have  seen 
anything  more  beautiful  than  some  of  the  trips 
we  used  to  make  homewards  after  sunset,  down 
the  Sound.  It  is  an  enchanted  shore  at  the 
worst  of  times  —  something  like  the  trip  up  to 
Southampton  from  the  Needles,  only  five  times 
as  long  and,  especially  after  sundown,  a  dozen 
times  as  beautiful.  There  is  always  a  mys- 
terious shore  to  right  and  left,  fading  and 
advancing  as  you  turn  and  twist  along  the  chan- 
nel. Just  as  you  start  you  will  have  the  melt- 
ing gold  and  russet  and  saffron  of  the  sunset, 
deepening  into  violet,  on  your  right  hand;  and 
suddenly  behind  you  the  whole  of  Lake  Island 
bursts  into  a  luminous  outline  of  little  points  of 
fire,  as  they  turn  on  the  illuminations.  They 
are  only  electric  lights  and  they  outline  quite 
ugly  things,  a  Ferris  Wheel  and  a  mountain 
railway  and  so  on,  but  as  you  leave  them  be- 
hind they  twist  themselves  into  pagodas  and 
enchanted  palaces  and  vague  dancing  shapes 
that  are  too  elusive  to  build  thoughts  upon,  or 


The  Child  Terrible 


more  than  visions.  The  Sound  is  very  still, 
only  a  soft  fresh  breeze  fans  your  temples  and 
all  around  you  the  pale  shadows  of  the  islands 
deepen  to  purple  invisibility;  and  somewhere 
ahead  are  the  blood-red  and  flowery  green  pin- 
pricks of  passing  vessels;  and  little  bustling 
lights  spring  out  on  the  growing  shores  and 
behind  you  the  glimmer  of  the  golden  palaces 
of  fairyland  fades  and  fades.  Everything 
seems  hushed  and  stilled  into  eternal  immobil- 
ity; you  only  are  rushing  through  space  on  the 
wings  of  the  night;  somewhere  above  you,  wav- 
ing solemnly  across  the  starlight,  are  the  great 
propeller  beams  that  make  the  Jane  McCracken 
seem  like  a  sluggish  spider  drawing  itself 
along  an  unseen  web.  The  lights  of  Lake 
Island  fade  at  last  into  a  mere  incandescence 
behind  you,  and  other  stars  rise  slowly  from 
the  unseen  distances  you  go  to  meet.  To 
sit  there,  on  the  upper  deck,  with  the  woman 
you  love  and  gaze  out  forward,  to  where  one 
solitary  golden  star  set  high  in  the  heavens 
tells  you  —  although  it  is  in  itself  nothing  more 
romantic  than  the  clock-face  of  the  Metropoli- 
155 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

tan  Life  Building  in  Madison  Square  a  dozen 
miles  away  from  you  —  that  somewhere  the 
only  real  Paradise  —  they  call  it  Home  —  is 
waiting  .  .  . 

But  this  is  all  very  absurd,  well  enough  for 
married,  respectable  folk,  lords  and  slaves  of 
small  imps  with  warm,  confiding  palms,  but  not 
for  vagabonds,  with  no  more  useful  mission  in 
life  than  to  take  orders  for  beer.  "  Ice-cream ! 
Ice-cream ! !  Now  then,  Folks  —  who  wants 
ice-cream  ?  Five  cents !  Only  Five  Cents !  " 


156 


CHAPTER  XV 

Called  to  the  Bar 


I  ATTAINED  the  summit  of  human  am- 
bition —  as  understood  by  many  mil- 
lions of  people  in  New  York,  London, 
and  elsewhere  —  on  the  same  day  that  I  be- 
came a  life-long  teetotaller  from  birth,  like 
Mr.  Bryan,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  other  nota- 
bilities. I  do  not  mean  because  of  it.  It  hap- 
pened after  I  had  dismissed  myself  from  my 
job  on  the  Jane  McCracken.  I  had  to  visit 
her,  in  secret,  in  order  to  give  back  the  clothes 
I  had  borrowed  and  to  collect  what  was  left 
of  my  own.  They  were  not  unshrinkable,  un- 
fortunately, and  there  was  very  little  of  them 
left 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  most  remark- 
able  thing  about  humanity   is  the  number  of 
really  nice  people  —  white  men,  as  you  would 
157 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

say  in  America  —  it  includes.  In  my  erratic 
wanderings  through  life  the  preponderance  of 
white  folk  I  have  come  across  is  quite  over- 
whelming; it  is  true  that,  judged  by  the  ordi- 
nary standards  of  morality,  some  of  them  might 
be  regarded,  by  respectable  people,  as  very 
rank  outsiders  indeed.  I  am  reminded  of  this 
when  I  think  of  Captain  —  technically  known 
as  "  Cap  " —  Lane,  who  was  the  skipper  of  the 
Jane  McCracken.  I  have  heard  it  darkly 
hinted,  among  the  crew  —  a  crew,  be  it  remem- 
bered, is  at  least  as  devoted  to  scandal  as  is  a 
convent  or  a  small  provincial  town  —  that 
"  Cap  "  Lane  was  a  most  immoral  man  —  that, 
exceeding  the  proverbial  privilege  accorded  to 
sea-faring  men,  he  not  only  had  a  wife  in  every 
port,  but  two  or  three.  If  so,  I  am  sure  they 
were  all  devoted  to  him,  and  that  however  many 
children  he  may  have  had,  he  was  an  Ideal 
father  to  each  and  all  of  them.  He  was  rather 
a  small  man,  with  a  bluff  voice  that  yet  had  in 
it  the  sort  of  timbre  that  made  you  want  to 
put  your  head  on  his  shoulder  and  sob  out  your 
troubles  to  him.  I  never  did,  because  my  re- 

158 


Called  to  the  Bar 


lations  with  him  were  purely  official,  but  if  I 
had  been  his  wife,  or  somebody  else's,  I  can 
imagine  myself  doing  it  all  day  long.  He  was 
just  coming  off  the  Jane  McCracken  when  I 
met  him. 

Cap  Lane  used  to  drink  a  great  deal  more 
than  was  good  for  him.  He  drank  according 
to  a  system  of  his  own.  For  twenty-two  hours 
out  of  the  twenty-four  he  was  strictly  teetotal. 
I  think  it  was  the  result  of  some  promise  he  had 
made  to  his  mother  on  her  death-bed,  but  any- 
way he  had  to  crowd  into  two  hours  all  the 
drinking  that  the  ordinary  man  can  spread 
through  the  day  and  part  of  the  night.  He 
was  very  methodical  about  it.  Our  last  trip 
usually  brought  us  back  to  New  York  some- 
where after  nine  in  the  evening.  As  soon  as 
the  ship  was  moored  Cap  Lane  left  her  at  once, 
betook  himself  to  a  saloon  on  Greenwich 
Street,  and  set  himself  solidly  to  the  task  of 
pouring  into  himself  as  much  liquor  as  was 
humanly  possible  in  the  short  one  hundred  and 
twenty  minutes  available.  I  do  not  believe  he 
liked  it  —  not,  at  least,  taken  at  railway  speed; 

159 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

he  regarded  it  as  a  stern  duty  and  he  did.  I  do 
not  think  it  ever  made  him  drunk.  On  at  least 
one  occasion  I  was  privileged  to  see  him  home 
—  to  one  of  his  homes  at  any  rate,  in  Green- 
wich. He  was  certainly  not  drunk  then;  he 
explained  to  me,  I  remember,  the  method  in 
which  pilots  "  con  "  a  ship  and  he  did  it  as 
clearly  as  might  a  mathematical  professor. 
Yet,  as  it  was  currently  reported,  he  already 
carried  within  himself  that  evening  enough 
liquor  to  enable  a  moderate-sized  steamer  to 
come  to  her  moorings  without  any  fear  of 
grounding  whatever. 

I  met  him,  as  I  say,  just  as  I  was  slinking 
towards  the  gangway,  in  the  faint  hope  that  I 
might  secure  my  small  property  without  at- 
tracting undue  attention.  He  captured  me,  in 
silence,  and  drew  me  with  him  across  the  park 
and  into  the  saloon  of  his  choice.  There,  fix- 
ing me  with  his  eye,  he  held  me  in  irons  until 
he  had  produced  from  his  pocket  a  letter.  It 
was  from  Helga's  father  and  it  was  quite  flat- 
tering —  evidently  the  Monkey  had  held  fast 
to  her  self-imposed  convention  of  never  telling 

160 


Called  to  the  Bar 


the  truth  where  a  lie  was  possible  —  and  it 
enclosed  a  hundred-dollar  bill. 

One  of  the  commonest  mistakes  made  by 
people  of  the  middle  and  upper-middle  classes 
is  to  suppose  that  they  and  their  superiors 
monopolise  the  finer  shades  of  sensibility. 
Cap  Lane  was  not  "  geboren,"  as  the  Germans 
have  it.  He  first  saw  the  light  in  the  cabin 
of  a  barge  on  the  Erie  Canal,  and  spent  most 
of  his  youth  irritating  with  a  bent  pin  at  the  end 
of  a  stick  the  tails  of  the  mules  who  drew  his 
father  and  his  fortunes.  Yet  he  understood  at 
once  why  I  did  not  feel  like  taking  that  hundred- 
dollar  bill,  and  he  agreed  to  divide  the  reward 
among  the  members  of  the  crew  and  their 
auxiliaries  and  did  it  faithfully.  What  is  more, 
he  carried  me  off  with  him,  that  same  evening, 
to  the  saloon  on  Eighth  Avenue  owned  by  a 
friend  named  Macgregor.  Mr.  Macgregor 
had  all  the  assistants  he  required,  but  that  made 
no  difference  at  all.  He  had  to  accept  me  — 
and  knowing  Cap  Lane  I  suppose  he  knew  it; 
and  within  five  minutes  I  was  setting  up  the 
bottles  and  the  Cap  was  pouring  chasers  down 

161 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

his  throat;  and  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  was 
not  nearly  so  clumsy  as  you  would  have  thought 
at  the  time,  but  that  I  really  was  trying  to  help 
him  go  slow. 

What  we  call  a  public-house,  and  usually  be- 
lieve that  the  Americans  call  a  saloon,  calls 
itself  in  New  York  a  cafe  —  or  as  an  American 
Pitman  would  spell  it,  a  kaafe.  When  I  be- 
came a  bar-tender  in  a  cafe  I  had  to  become  a 
lifelong  teetotaller  from  birth,  because  that  is 
almost  a  sine  qua  non  in  New  York  bar-tending. 
At  the  same  time  I  was  raised  in  the  public  eye 
to  a  rank  a  little  higher  than  a  marquisate  in 
England  and  a  little  lower  than  a  dukedom. 

The  bar-tender  is  the  only  person  in  New 
York  who  is  addressed  as  "  sir  " —  in  the  Eng- 
lish way  of  using  the  word  —  by  what  we 
should  call  the  lower  classes.  The  policeman 
is  sometimes  similarly  honoured  by  unin- 
structed  foreigners,  but  only  when  they  are 
honest.  The  rest,  who  are  in  the  majority, 
call  him  "  son  "  or  "  youse  guy,"  according  to 
the  closeness  of  their  intimacy.  The  bar-tender 
• —  and  especially  the  proprietor  —  is  not  at  all 

162 


Called  to  the  Bar 


the  pimply,  dirty  old  Irish  reprobate  with  an 
impossible  brogue,  a  hard-worked  sense  of  hu- 
mour and  an  unquenchable  loquacity,  popular- 
ised by  Mr.  Dooley  and  other  humorists. 
Instead,  he  is  a  silent,  keen-eyed,  close-lipped 
business  man,  with  a  neat  taste  in  tailoring  and 
a  prejudice  against  alcoholic  stimulant.  I  have 
said  I  was  a  teetotaller;  so  were  my  three  col- 
leagues, and  the  boy  and  the  terrier  and  the 
proprietor  —  some  of  even  longer  standing. 
Two'  were  earnest  church  workers  —  Scotch 
Presbyterians,  as  well  —  but  I  was  not,  because 
it  was  optional. 

You  need  a  character  if  you  wish  to  prosper 
as  a  New  York  bar-tender.  In  some  other 
trades  —  politics  and  the  delicatessen  industry, 
for  instance  —  you  are  better  without  one. 
Instead,  in  applying  for  a  job,  if  the  boss  — 
pronounced  "  baws,"  by  the  way  —  asks  if  you 
have  had  experience,  you  say  nothing  at  all  — 
you  just  wink  and  smile.  The  more  meaning 
you  can  get  into  that  wink  the  more  certain  you 
are  of  getting  the  job.  I  had  a  character  — 
given  me  by  Cap  Lane,  and  he  knew  the  boss's 

163 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

prejudices.  The  boss's  name  was,  as  I  have 
said,  Macgregor,  and  he  was  from  County 
Down,  and  had  a  liking  for  his  fellow-country- 
men. So  I  was  from  County  Down,  too,  like 
the  rest  of  the  establishment,  down  to  the  ter- 
rier. My  name  was  Mackintosh  —  with  the 
accent  on  the  I  —  but  I  left  home  very  young 
before  I  learned  to  speak  Ulster,  as  my  father 
was  an  earnest  Orangeman,  much  persecuted  by 
the  local  Papistry.  I  was  born  in  a  village,  the 
name  of  which  I  forget,  but  which  Mr.  Mac- 
gregor recognised  as  soon  as  Cap  Lane  told 
him  of  it,  though  he  had  not  visited  it  for  some 
years.  He  was  able  to  tell  me  all  about  it,  and 
even  to  describe  the  cottage  I  must  have  been 
born  in.  After  a  time  he  began  to  remember 
my  father  and  what  a  decent  man  he  was,  and 
how  he  had  a  son  who  used  to  go  about  in  a 
hat  three  sizes  too  large  for  him.  I  said  it 
was  my  elder  brother,  but  he  insisted  it  was  I, 
because  he  began  to  remember  the  boy's  face, 
and  it  had  exactly  my  eyes  and  hair  and  nose, 
and  was  inclined  to  stoutness.  We  nearly 
quarrelled  over  it,  and  I  found  out  he  was  an 
164 


Called  to  the  Bar 


ill  man  to  contradict.  He  insisted  on  calling 
me  Alexander  afterwards,  which  was  the  elder 
brother's  name,  instead  of  William,  which  was 
mine,  because  he  was  quite  sure  I  was  the  elder 
brother,  who  had  got  into  trouble  for  shooting 
at  a  parish  priest  from  behind  a  hedge,  and 
was  trying  to  pass  myself  off  as  my  own  junior. 
It  was  a  bit  mixed,  but  it  made  us  very  good 
friends  again,  and  he  promised  to  put  me  up 
for  the  "  martyr  "  branch  of  his  Lodge,  which 
included  all  those  who  had  suffered  for  the 
Cause. 

The  cafe  was  on  the  corner  of  a  block,  as 
most  of  them  are.  Nearly  every  block  in  New 
York  has  a  cafe  at  each  of  its  four  corners,  a 
couple  of  gambling-hells  somewhere  handy, 
eight  shoe-shining  stands,  where  they  also  sell 
oranges  and  chocolates,  and  a  church.  I  don't 
say  this  is  universal ;  sometimes  one  of  the  shoe- 
shining  stands  is  left  out  and  sometimes  the 
church,  but  never  the  cafes.  They  are  rather 
like  churches  themselves  in  atmosphere.  Ours 
was,  at  any  rate.  I  suggested,  when  I  had  been 
there  some  little  time,  that  it  would  not  be  a 
165 


TA  Vagabond  in  New  York 

bad  idea  to  open  proceedings  with  prayer,  ac- 
cording to  the  ritual  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 
I  meant  it  humorously,  but  Mr.  Macgregor 
was  struck  with  the  idea,  and  only  gave  it  up 
for  fear  it  would  be  bad  for  the  business,  as  we 
had  so  many  Jewish  customers.  He  liked  me 
all  the  better  for  it,  though. 

Curiously  enough,  one  of  our  customers  was 
Mr.  Cholmondely,  whose  delicatessen  store 
was  only  a  few  blocks  off.  As  you  may  remem- 
ber, we  had  parted  unfriends  on  a  matter  of 
chickens.  So  the  first  evening  he  came  in  when 
I  was  serving,  feeling  rather  proud  of  my  white 
coat  and  white  apron  —  white  suits  my  com- 
plexion, I  have  been  told  —  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  ignore  him.  He  wouldn't  be  ignored, 
though;  he  reached  out  for  my  hand  as  if  it 
had  been  a  greenback,  and  stood  there  slob- 
bering with  his  hat  off  and  calling  me  "  Ma 
tear,"  and  waiting  with  a  pathetic  little  smile 
for  me  to  nod  to  him.  I  realised  then  for  the 
first  time  how  high  I  had  risen. 

When  I  say  the  cafe  was  like  a  church,  I 
mean  that  you  never  heard  loud  voices  or  bad 
166 


Called  to  the  Ear 


language  in  it.  Customers  all  had  a  deferen- 
tial air,  and  used  to  swallow  their  whisky  — 
always  "  chasers,"  whisky  first  and  water  after- 
wards out  of  two  separate  glasses  —  as  if  it 
was  medicine.  The  place  was  all  swathed  in 
white  muslin,  with  pink  rosettes,  to  keep  the 
flies  off  the  looking-glasses,  and  the  bar  was  a 
big  round  horseshoe,  like  a  rostrum,  swept  and 
garnished,  and  behind  it  was  a  sort  of  trophy  of 
bottles  like  an  organ-case.  All  this  decency 
and  propriety  was  because  there  were  no  bar- 
maids and  no  women  customers.  None  visible, 
I  mean.  I  have  often  heard  good  Americans 
lament  over  the  number  of  women  you  see  in 
public-houses  in  London,  and  rejoice  that  such 
a  spectacle  is  unknown  in  New  York.  That 
is  because  they  know  nothing  of  the  "  Family 
Entrance."  There  aren't  "  public  "  and  "  pri- 
vate "  and  "  saloon  "  bars  in  New  York,  but 
there  is  a  family  entrance,  which  in  our  case 
meant  a  little  room  at  the  back  of  the  cafe  with 
a  separate  door.  It  was  used  chiefly  on  Sun- 
days when  we  were  supposed  to  be  shut,  and 
there  would  be  more  women  than  men  in  it 

167 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

half  the  time.  It  was  used  after  closing  hours, 
too.  We  nominally  closed  at  one,  by  which 
time  the  really  seasoned  topers  hadn't  got 
properly  to  work,  but  we  kept  open  as  long  as 
there  were  any  customers.  Because  I  was 
rather  large  and  heavy  Macgregor  put  me  on 
duty  in  the  "  Family  "  department  right  from 
the  beginning,  and  there  was  not  any  ecclesias- 
tical atmosphere  about  that.  Chucking  out  was 
not  so  easy  as  it  is  in  London,  because  every 
cafe  has  storm  doors  —  glass-porch  arrange- 
ments to  keep  out  the  cold  in  winter  —  and  if 
your  man  struggled  it  was  difficult  to  get  him 
through  without  breaking  the  glass.  Mac- 
gregor was  in  favour  of  stunning  him  first,  but 
if  you  killed  him  you  were  almost  certain  to 
have  trouble  with  the  police  and  get  fined  or 
something. 

I  stayed  at  the  cafe  quite  a  long  time ;  and  I 
only  left  because  I  was  offered  a  partnership 
by  a  customer  in  vaudeville,  which  had  always 
interested  me. 


1 68 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A  Son  of  the  Empire 


1 


educational  value  of  the  public- 
house  is  seldom  recognised  by  social 
reformers.  In  actual  fact  it  has  all 
the  advantages  of  that  academy  to  which  the 
elder  Mr.  Weller  sent  his  son  Samuel,  with 
none  of  its  drawbacks.  Personally,  I  learned 
more  in  Mr.  Macgregor's  cafe  than  I  have  ever 
learned  outside  it  —  and  not  of  matters  con- 
nected with  the  liquor  trade  only.  For  one 
thing,  I  learned  to  understand  English. 

When  I  first  went  to  New  York  I  got  a  job 
on  a  newspaper.  I  am  ashamed  to  say  how 
short  a  time  I  held  it,  and  I  cannot  fairly  quar- 
rel with  the  reason  for  my  dismissal,  which 
was  that  my  English  was  very  much  too  pro- 
vincial for  a  really  high-toned  metropolitan 
journal.  More  urgent  matters  prevented  my 

169 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

giving  any  appreciable  time  to  the  study  of  the 
language  until  I  became  a  bar-tender,  and  then 
I  realised  how  thoroughly  justified  had  been  my 
expulsion  from  that  first  newspaper  office.  But 
I  did  not  despair.  I  set  to  work  to  master  the 
subject,  and  by  the  time  I  had  learned  the  four 
chief  secrets  I  felt  emboldened  to  try  my 
prentice  hand  at  journalism  once  more.  I  do 
not  mean  that  I  tried  after  actual  journalistic 
employment  —  I  knew  my  own  limitations  too 
well  for  that, —  but  I  began  to  send  round  little 
articles  and  one  or  two  of  them  were  accepted 
and  I  can't  tell  you  how  proud  I  was.  Proud, 
I  mean,  to  see  that  I  was  still  capable  of  learn- 
ing and  that  within  a  year  or  two  I  might  expect 
to  be  able  to  speak  President's  English  quite 
passably.  It  is  something,  after  all,  to  be  able 
to  write  in  two  languages  and  all  the  more  so 
when  they  have  so  many  queer  surface  resem- 
blances. The  Germans  are  very  capable  lin- 
guists; yet  you  will  never  find  a  German  who 
can  speak  Dutch;  it  is  too  much  like  his  own 
language. 

There  are  several  shibboleths  by  which  the 
170 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


true  New  Yorker  may  recognise  the  provincial 
young  man  from  England.  Here  follow  four 
of  the  most  important,  by  a  careful  observance 
of  which  the  Englishman  may  for  a  long  time 
escape  conviction,  even  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
metropolis  itself.  Imprimis,  he  has  a  fatal 
habit  of  using  such  phrases  as  "  You  must," 
"  You  should,"  "  It  is  essential  that  you  — " 
and  so  forth,  when  there  is  only  one  safe  way 
of  expressing  the  same  idea,  "  You  gotta." 
Again,  he  will  say,  or  write  —  which  is  even 
worse  — "  A  quarter  to  ten."  He  should  say, 
"  A  quarter  of  ten."  He  will  talk  of  being 
"  called  after  So-and-so."  It  should  be 
"  named  for  So-and-so."  Finally,  he  will  say 
'  Yes  "  or  "  No  " —  words  perfectly  unfamiliar 
to  the  cultured  Anglo-Saxon,  who  has  no  real 
words  expressing  such  ideas.  Occasionally,  the 
glosses  "  Yup  "  and  "  Nop  "  are  heard,  it  is 
true,  though  seldom  in  really  cultured  circles. 
I  pass  over  such  minor  errors  as  "  biscuit  "  for 
"  crackers  "  and  "  ill  "  for  "  sick,"  because  even 
in  England  the  best  people  are  beginning  to 
realise  the  folly  of  such  insularities. 

171 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

If  you  go  farther  and  wish  to  be  accepted 
not  only  as  American,  but  as  one  of  the  rarest 
creatures  on  God's  green  earth,  a  native-born 
New  Yorker,  you  must  remember  yet  one  thing 
more,  always  to  pronounce  "  th  "  as  "  d."  If 
you  wish  to  say  that  you  were  looking  for  three 
thousand  Thespian  thieves  in  Third  Avenue, 
you  must  say  that  you  were  watching  out  for 
dree  dousand  Despian  dieves  —  only  you  would 
not  say  thieves  at  all,  but  politicians  or  State 
Senators,  or  smart  business  men,  or  something 
like  that.  You  would  say  "  on  Third  Avenue," 
by  the  way,  and  never  "  in."  I  suppose  this 
curious  treatment  of  the  "  th  "  comes  from  the 
enormous  number  of  German  immigrants  in 
New  York,  just  as  does  the  word  "  boob," 
meaning  —  well,  all  sorts  of  things.  "He  is 
some  boob,"  for  instance,  means  that  he  fancies 
himself  quite  considerably.  There  is  nothing 
guttural  about  the  "  th " ;  it  is  a  pure,  clean 
"  d,"  and  very  characteristic. 

To  become  a  graduate  in  American  slang  is 
of  the  simplest.  I  think  I  may  say  without 
boasting  that  I  was  for  a  time  emeritus  pro- 

172 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


fessor  in  the  Macgregor  University  of  Eighth 
Avenue.  I  picked  up  an  old  copy  —  I  think 
it  was  in  the  Bohn  edition  —  of  the  Vision  of 
Piers  Plowman  —  at  a  second-hand  book-store 
on  Forty-second  Street  and  quoted  at  random. 
You  will  also  find  much  useful  information  in 
Roger  Occam,  while  I  understand,  though  I  can 
speak  only  from  hearsay,  that  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  is  a  very  mine  of  up-to-the-hour 
Americanisms. 

I  fear  that  I  am  wandering  somewhat  from 
the  path  of  my  vagabondage,  but  so  I  actually 
did  in  real  life  when  I  tended  bar  for  Mr.  Mac- 
gregor. I  occupied,  so  to  put  it,  a  place  of 
profit  under  Government,  a  hillock  of  ease 
whereon  to  rest  and  look  back  over  the  devious 
wanderings  of  the  past  few  months.  Mine 
again  was  a  position  analogous  to  that  of  a  po- 
liceman on  point  duty  outside  Charing  Cross 
Station,  in  that  at  least  a  very  large  section  of 
New  York  passed  daily  under  my  survey.  Es- 
pecially, of  course,  I  was  interested  in  the  Eng- 
glishmen  among  our  patrons.  The  number  of 
Englishmen  in  New  York  is  really  surprising. 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

It  is  pathetic,  too,  when  you  come  to  realise  how 
many  of  them  have  drifted  there,  after  failing 
elsewhere,  with  some  vague  hope  that  it  is  an 
Eldorado  where  they  can  repair  their  damaged 
fortunes.  We  have  been  told,  ad  nauseam, 
that  the  Americans  hate,  despise,  envy,  con- 
temn the  English.  This  and  similar  statements 
are  absolutely  untrue,  so  far  at  least  as  my 
experience  goes,  but  if  it  were  so  it  would 
scarcely  be  surprising  so  far  as  New  York  is 
concerned,  seeing  how  large  a  proportion  of  the 
Englishmen  seen  there  are  "  unemployables  "— • 
at  either  end  of  the  social  scale.  The  capable 
Englishman  goes  West;  if  he  stays  in  New 
York,  where  there  is  really  no  room  for  him, 
he  is  not  capable.  I  stayed  in  New  York,  my- 
self, so  I  know. 

If  the  New  Yorker  —  and  especially  the 
lower  class  New  Yorker  —  does  not  hate  Eng- 
land and  the  English,  it  is  not  for  want  of  en- 
couragement. The  reason  is  curious  enough 
and  has  very  little  to  do  with  Irish  Nationalist 
sentiment,  though  that  of  course  helps.  But  it 
is  chiefly  a  matter  of  business. 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


New  York  has  notoriously  its  gutter  press  — > 
not  more  guttery  though  than  is  its  counterpart 
in  England.  It  devotes  itself  to  supplying 
strong  meats  for  the  baser  part  of  the  populace. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  Finns,  Wallachs, 
Lithuanians,  and  a  hundred  other  weird  peoples 
whose  very  names  are  scarcely  known  to  us  ex- 
cept in  fits  of  depression.  The  papers  who 
pander  to  them  are  forced  to  attack  England, 
if  they  would  gain  their  pennies,  for  two  rea- 
sons, both  unexpected.  In  the  first  place 
patriotism  pays,  in  America  as  elsewhere, 
perhaps  even  a  little  more;  and  it  is  the  patriotic 
duty  of  every  American  paper  to  uphold  the 
banner  of  America  against  all  comers  —  as  one 
can  only  wish  were  also  the  case  in  England. 
Now,  a  very  good  w^ay  of  praising  your  own 
country  is  to  compare  it  favourably  with  its 
foreign  sisters.  You  could  not  gain  any 
national  kudos  by  pointing  out  American  su- 
periority over  Moldo-Wallachia  or  Crim  Tar- 
tary;  you  would  only  be  insulting  America  by 
condescending  to  such  a  comparison.  You  must 
select  a  more  or  less  worthy  rival  to  give  your 
175 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

words  some  weight.  England  is  the  one  coun- 
try in  the  world  which  America  regards  as  a 
worthy  rival.  Therefore,  when  the  gutter  press 
upholds  America  at  the  expense  of  the  outer 
world,  England  has  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it. 
Thus  the  foreign-born  American  is  gradually 
being  educated  to  believe  that  England  com- 
prises within  herself  every  national  quality 
which  compares  unfavourably  with  her  trans- 
atlantic daughter.  The  native-born  American 
does  not  think  so  for  a  moment;  with  very  few 
exceptions  he  admires  England  and  likes  the 
English,  but  he  has  other  things  to  do  than  to 
spend  his  time  protesting  that  liking. 

Another  reason  which  tends  towards  gutter- 
abuse  of  England  is  the  race-war,  which  has  al- 
ready broken  out  in  the  United  States  and 
which  in  a  very  few  years,  unless  wisely  dealt 
with,  may  produce  serious  results.  Perhaps 
less  in  New  York  than  elsewhere,  but  very  per- 
ceptible there  also,  is  the  striking  fact  that 
all  the  men  of  action  have  English,  or  more 
strictly  British,  names.  The  financier  or  the 
capitalist  is  very  often,  though  not  invariably, 

176 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


German  or  Jewish.  But  the  director,  the  fore- 
man, the  manager,  the  supervisor  who  comes 
into  personal  contact  with  the  working-class,  is 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  of  British  descent. 
The  working-class,  which  is  largely  recruited 
from  the  weird  under-nations  already  referred 
to,  does  not  consider  itself  well-treated.  Per- 
sonally I  quite  agree  with  it,  though  I  need  not 
go  into  that.  Whether  or  no,  the  man  upon 
whose  shoulders  it  places  the  responsibility  for 
its  sufferings  is  that  representative  of  the  ruling 
caste  with  whom  it  is  brought  into  personal  con- 
tact—  the  man  of  British  descent.  Ex  $ede 
Herculem. 

At  the  upper  end  of  the  social  scale  there  is 
certainly  little  anti-British  prejudice.  On  the 
contrary,  the  one  indispensable  condition  of  so- 
cial success  is  to  have  a  British  name.  Armed 
with  that  you  have  always  the  chance  of  being 
recognised  as  an  F.F.V.,  which  is  to  say,  the 
scion  of  one  of  the  first  families  of  Virginia, 
which  is  to  say,  a  descendant  of  Cavaliers  and 
an  acceptable  candidate  for  membership  in  the 
Thames  Valley  Legitimist  League  or  the  White 

177 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

Rose  Society  or  other  combination  of  Die-Hard 
Jacobites.  Failing  that,  your  ancestors  came 
over  in  the  Mayflower,  which,  as  has  now  been 
proved  by  the  researches  of  the  Smithsonian  In- 
stitute, was  a  vessel  of  about  double  the  size  of 
the  Imperator,  and  crowded  at  that.  If  you 
are  unlucky  enough  not  to  have  an  English  name 
—  but  your  son  always  has,  so  we  need  not  go 
into  that.  For  some  curious  reason,  it  is  better 
to  have  had  an  English  great-grandfather  than 
an  English  father.  If,  I  mean,  your  father 
was  born  in  Putney,  you  conceal  it,  or  pretend 
that  it  was  not  Putney,  England,  but  Putney, 
Massachusetts.  If  it  was  your  grandfather, 
you  regard  Massachusetts  or  Surrey  with  equal 
equanimity.  But  if  it  was  your  great-grand- 
father—  then  there  is  no  holding  you;  you 
subscribe  on  the  slightest  encouragement,  or 
none  at  all,  to  funds  for  the  restoration  of  Put- 
ney Parish  Church,  and  if  you  have  not  had 
eighteen  generations  of  crusading  ancestors 
buried  there  before  your  fiftieth  birthday  you 
are  no  true  American. 

178 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


My  coloured  cousin  Euphemia  was  a  suffi- 
ciently good  example  of  the  spiritual  empire 
wielded  by  England  in  another  direction.  I 
came  across  one  still  more  suggestive  in  the 
days  when  I  was  trying  to  be  a  journalist.  He 
was  an  Englishman  named  Ah  Wong  Li. 

I  had  been  sent  to  Chinatown,  which  is  the 
place  where  the  Chinese  live,  to  get  up,  if  I 
could,  a  picturesque  story  concerning  a  shooting 
affair  which  had  just  taken  place  there.  One 
of  the  best  assets  of  the  New  York  paper  is  the 
Tong.  No  New  York  paper  ever  gives  any 
more  news  than  it  can  help  about  anything  that 
happens  outside  New  York.  If  the  German 
Emperor,  the  Tsar,  and  the  French  President 
murdered  each  other  after  a  drinking  bout,  the 
most  enterprising  New  York  daily  would  give 
the  affair  three  lines,  tucked  away  under  an  ac- 
count of  how  little  Flossie  Yammerheim,  of 
Avenue  A,  had  won  a  cooking  prize  at  school, 
developed  into  three  columns  by  the  help  of 
interviews  with  her  teacher,  the  local  Rabbi, 
and  the  delicatessen  storekeeper  who  provided 

179 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

the  materials.  The  next  most  enterprising 
journal  would  give  the  Yuropian  holocaust  one 
line ;  the  rest  would  not  refer  to  it  at  all.  The 
New  York  public  cares  only  for  what  happens 
in  New  York,  and,  of  course,  in  Mayfair,  which 
is,  however,  no  more  than  a  suburb  of  Manhat- 
tan. Now  the  Tong  —  which  is  a  Chinese 
Secret  Society  —  is  New  Yorkian  and  Oriental 
and  picturesque  all  at  the  same  time.  And  it 
is  always  killing  itself  or  its  rivals,  which  ren- 
ders it  even  more  eligible.  So  I  was  sent  to 
Mott  Street  to  get  the  details  of  an  affair  in 
which  seven  Chinamen  shot  each  other  dead  in 
a  laundry,  and  five  were  wounded.  And  there 
I  met  Ah  Wong  Li.  He  was  the  secretary  of 
a  flourishing  co-operative  murder  society,  and 
he  was  very  English  indeed.  He  had  been 
educated  in  Berkshire  —  he  was  born  in  Hong 
Kong  —  and  he  had  a  contempt  for  any  one  not 
born  under  the  British  flag  that  was  quite  colos- 
sal. The  thing  that  interested  him  most,  apart 
from  the  restaurant  which  he  owned,  was  Im- 
perial Federation.  I  shall  never  forget  the 

180 


I  was  sent  to  Mott  Street  to  get  the  details  of  an  affair. 


A  Son  of  the  Empire 


contempt  with  which  he  spoke  to  another 
Englishman  of  Chinese  descent,  who,  however, 
was  only  brought  to  Hong  Kong  at  the  age  of 
two,  having  been  born,  by  an  oversight,  some- 
where in  Mongolia. 


181 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Under  the  Red  Light 


1 


are  only  three  people  in  New 
York  who  do  not  profess  them- 
selves able  to  give  you  full  and 
authentic  inside  knowledge  of  the  genesis  of 
all  police  scandals,  present,  past,  and  to  come. 
They  are  all  high  police  officials,  and  I  am  not 
one  of  them.  I  really  did  get  some  little  in- 
sight into  the  "  Red  Light "  system  at  first  hand 
when,  for  a  time,  I  acted  as  assistant  door- 
keeper at  a  gambling-hell  in  the  West  Forties. 
That  was  after  I  had  left  Macgregor's  saloon, 
when  my  vaudeville  venture  had  failed  lamen- 
tably, and  while  I  was  still  trying  to  be  a  jour- 
nalist. 

It  was  a  regular  customer  at  the  cafe  who 
first  induced  me  to  tempt  fortune  in  vaudeville. 
He  was  an  American  —  one  of  the  few  I  ever 
182 


Under  the  Red  Light 


saw  in  New  York  —  which  meant,  of  course, 
that  he  had  a  scheme  for  cornering  the  whole 
vaudeville  business  in  the  United  States,  Great 
Britain  being  regarded  as  one  of  the  minor  ter- 
ritories. He  worked  it  out  down  to  its  smallest 
details  at  late  sittings  in  the  Family  Depart- 
ment, and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would  have 
turned  out  a  marvellous  success  if  he  had  been 
able  to  raise  the  five  dollars  necessary  for  pro- 
curing properly  stamped  notepaper  —  an  essen- 
tial preliminary  to  commercial  success  in 
America.  I  did  not  regret  my  temporary  con- 
nection with  him,  because  it  threw  me  into 
fortuitous  contact  with  a  man  who  really  did 
manage  one  of  the  minor  halls  on  the  East  Side, 
and  under  his  auspices  I  made  my  first  appear- 
ance in  vaudeville.  It  only  lasted  for  a  week, 
and  I  cannot  say  that  it  had  any  very  pronounced 
success,  but  it  was  quite  good  fun  while  it  lasted. 
I  worked  the  turn  with  Miss  Lamartine,  whose 
name  you  may  remember.  She  is  extremely 
small;  I  have  been  called  stout  by  my  enemies, 
and  am  rather  on  the  tall  side.  I  was  dressed 
as  a  baby  in  long  clothes,  and  Miss  Lamartine, 
183 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

attired  as  the  vaudevillists'  idea  of  a  nursemaid, 
pushed  me  on  to  the  stage  in  the  American 
apology  for  a  perambulator,  and  we  sang  songs 
and  spouted  patter  and  that  sort  of  thing.  I 
think  we  enjoyed  it  more  than  the  audience  did, 
because,  being  mostly  Greeks  and  Italians  and 
Russian  Jews,  I  doubt  if  they  understood  what 
we  said;  but  they  were  very  nice  about  it,  and 
there  were  no  riots  or  anything  unpleasant. 
We  were  .not  able  to  get  any  re-engagements, 
though,  so  the  speculation  came  to  an  end.  I 
can't  say  that  I  learned  very  much  about  the 
American  music-hall  stage  in  the  time;  the  only 
difference  I  could  see  was  that,  while  in  England 
you  do  not  call  your  fellow-artists  by  their  Chris- 
tian names  until  you  have  exchanged  at  least 
three  words,  in  America  you  address  even  your 
business  letters  to  people  you  have  never  seen 
with  some  endearing  diminutive,  and  close  with 
love  and  innumerable  kisses. 

I  had  been  wise  enough  not  to  drop  my  small 
journalistic  connection  in  the  meantime,  but  all 
the  same  I  began  looking  for  another  job  at 
once.  The  free-lance  has,  if  possible,  a  worse 

184 


Under  the  Red  Light 


time  in  New  York  than  in  London,  so  far  as 
getting  paid  goes.  In  London,  of  course,  they 
often  make  you  wait  six  weeks  for  your  money, 
putting  the  responsibility  for  your  meals  in  the 
meantime  on  the  broad  shoulders  of  the  C.O.S. 
In  New  York  it  frequently  runs  to  three  months 
—  or  did  in  my  case  —  and  the  better  class  the 
paper  the  longer  you  have  to  wait.  I  did  some 
articles  for  what  is  generally  considered  the  best 
daily  in  New  York.  After  nine  weeks  I  asked 
for  the  money.  The  man  I  asked  was  quite 
annoyed  about  it,  and  said  I  ought  to  know 
better  than  to  worry  them  about  such  little 
things.  I  tried  hard  for  another  three  weeks, 
and  then  was  told  they  could  not  trace  the  trans- 
action at  all.  In  the  end  I  got  the  money  by 
going  up  to  the  proprietor's  room  on  the 
twenty-third  floor,  sitting  on  the  threshold  and 
moaning  through  the  keyhole.  He  said  it  got 
on  his  nerves,  after  two  hours,  and  gave  me  an 
order  on  the  cashier.  I  have  never  had  to  do 
that,  even  in  Carteret  —  I  mean  in  London. 

It  was  through  my  journalism  that  I  became 
a  gambling-hell  official.     I  wanted  to  make  my- 

185 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

self  favourably  known  in  other  ways  than  by 
emulating  Lazarus.  I  went  to  my  old  patron 
Officer  Dempsey  and  asked  for  suggestions, 
and  he  got  me  the  job.  It  was  in  a  plain 
brown  freestone  house  in  one  of  the  semi-resi- 
dential streets  between  Sixth  Avenue  and 
Broadway.  Most  of  the  gaming  places  and 
disorderly  houses  and  all-night  sing-songs  are 
clustered  about  there,  along  with  theatrical 
lodging  houses  and  cheap  restaurants  —  a  sort 
of  New  York  Shaftesbury  Avenue,  in  fact. 
Ours  was  a  very  discreet  establishment  with 
lace  curtains  in  the  windows,  and  a  high  flight 
of  steps  running  up  to  the  front  door.  It  was 
owned  by  an  alderman,  and  the  upper  part  was 
let  out  in  lodgings  to  theatre  people.  We  oc- 
cupied only  the  basement  and  the  ground  floor. 
Like  other  lawless  places  in  New  York  it  was 
run  on  lines  of  almost  monastic  respectability, 
voices  scarcely  raised  above  a  whisper  until 
pretty  early  in  the  morning,  drunken  men  put 
comfortably  to  bed  on  sofas  in  an  ante-room, 
and  that  sort  of  thing.  We  had  a  higher-class 
connection  than  most  of  our  rivals,  and  for 

1 86 


Under  the  Red  Light 


rather  a  curious  reason;  the  police  on  duty 
never  directed  any  chance  customers  our  way, 
everything  was  done  by  introduction.  In  the 
ordinary  way,  when  you  feel  like  gambling  or 
otherwise  amusing  yourself  disreputably  in 
New  York  you  make  for  that  section  of  Broad- 
way between  the  corner  of  Central  Park  — 
Fifty-ninth  Street  if  I  remember  aright  —  and 
Macey's  —  popularly  known  as  the  "  Great 
White  Way,"  because  of  its  electric  flashlight 
advertisements  —  and  ask  the  first  policeman 
you  come  across  where  to  go,  and  he  gives  you 
a  list  of  addresses.  You  can  ask  a  taxi-driver, 
if  you  prefer  it,  but  the  establishments  he  rec- 
ommends are  not  usually  of  the  first-class. 

Now  the  reason  that  my  particular  hell  was 
not  recommended  by  the  police  was  that  it  was 
not  officially  a  gambling  house  at  all.  The  al- 
derman and  other  highly  placed  gentlemen  who 
own  the  Vice  Trust  have,  of  course,  reduced  it 
to  a  very  exact  business,  of  which  each  branch 
keeps  strictly  to  its  own  affairs.  Thus  an 
alderman  who  runs  gambling-hells  is  not  sup- 
posed to  dabble  in  disorderly  houses;  if  he  does, 

187 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

it  must  be  secretly  and  at  the  risk  of  being 
raided  by  the  police,  as  not  paying  the  appro- 
priate rates  of  blackmail.  Our  proprietor  nomi- 
nally confined  his  activities  to  the  White  Slave 
side  of  the  business,  in  which  he  was  what  you 
might  call  the  managing  director.  But  he  was 
of  a  Napoleonic  turn  of  mind,  and  yearned  also 
after  the  profits  —  reported  to  be  higher  —  of 
the  gambling  side.  Hence  we  were  nominally 
a  disorderly  house  and  as  such  described  in  the 
official  records  —  and  only  paid  that  scale  of 
blackmail,  the  lower  of  the  two.  Consequently 
we  were  extremely  discreet  and  well-managed. 
In  that  particular  block  you  might,  every  night 
regularly,  Sundays  included,  hear  the  strains  of 
"  Everybody's  Doing  It "  wafted  to  heaven 
from  innumerable  gramophones,  from  mid- 
night to  nine  or  ten  next  morning;  you  might 
hear  drunken  choruses,  feminine  screams  of 
"  Murder,"  and  other  sounds  of  gaiety,  at  all 
hours.  But  never  from  our  house.  We 
might  have  been  a  community  of  bishops  for 
any  sign  to  the  contrary. 

We  were  not  raided  while  I  was  there,  and 
188 


Under  the  Red  Light 


there  were  no  disturbances  of  any  kind.  The 
life,  in  fact,  was  deadly  dull,  although  the  pay 
was  good;  and  I  learnt  how  to  play  quite  a 
number  of  games  hitherto  unknown  to  me. 
But  the  champagne  was  execrable  —  some 
abominable  Californian  brand  put  up  in  Perrier 
Jouet  bottles  —  and  I  was  afraid  of  diabetes 
and  left. 


189 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


I 


are  many  Englishmen  — 
some  of  whom  have  been  there  — 
who  quite  conscientiously  maintain 
that  the  street-manners  of  New  York  are  the 
worst  prevailing  in  any  great  city.  There  are 
a  number  of  New  Yorkers  who  will  tell  you, 
equally  conscientiously,  the  same  of  London. 
So  Paris  sneers  at  Berlin  and  Berlin  at  Paris, 
and  I.  suppose  Pekin  at  Tokio  and  vice-versa. 
What  is  more  they  are  all  perfectly  correct  ac- 
cording to  their  lights.  London  points  with' 
pride  to  the  theatre-queue;  Berlin  rejoices  in  the 
feline  smile  with  which  its  inhabitants  remove 
their  hats  on  entering  a  shop;  Paris  will  say 
and  truly  that  its  most  uncultured  Apache  takes 
off  a  victim  with  a  grace  unknown  in  brutaller 
climes;  New  York  might  claim,  if  it  liked  — 

190 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


though  it  is  too  busy  abusing  him  for  things  that 
he  can't  help  —  that  the  manner  of  Officer 
Dempsey  towards  a  harassed  foreigner  is  the 
kindliest  form  of  courtesy  anywhere  to  be 
found.  The  Parisian  does  not  barge  his  way 
into  a  tram-car  on  a  wet  day  —  because  a 
kindly  administration  provides  him  with  a  duly 
numbered  ticket  —  but  watch  him  on  the  out- 
skirts of  a  crowd  when  he  wants  to  see  the 
centre  of  interest.  The  Englishman  will  cold- 
shoulder  his  railway  companion,  boorishly,  be- 
cause he  is  shy  and  self-conscious ;  the  American 
will  lean  across  the  aisle  and  speculate  upon  the 
price  you  have  paid  for  your  overcoat,  be- 
cause he  really  takes  a  friendly  interest  in  you. 
Each  of  them  will  think  the  other  appallingly 
rude,  and  each  will  be  quite  right  and  very 
wrong. 

I  am  acknowledged,  in  England,  to  have 
really  charming  manners.  I  say  this,  not  in 
any  spirit  of  petty  pride,  but  because  it  illus- 
trates my  point.  A  New  York  acquaintance, 
long  since  become  a  friend,  has  assured  me 
that  when  I  was  first  introduced  to  him,  at  his 

191 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

club,  he  disliked  me  cordially,  setting  me  down 
as  prig,  oaf,  boor  and  I  know  not  what  beside. 
When  I  asked  him  upon  what  he  had  based  this 
unfavourable  verdict  he  replied :  "  Because, 
from  your  manner,  I  thought  you  must  be 
God's  first  cousin."  Passing  over  the  fact  that 
such  a  Personage  would  probably  have  excel- 
lent manners,  that  I  laid  no  claim  to  such  re- 
lationship and  that  I  never  met  an  Englishman 
who  did,  except  he  imply  it  in  the  well-founded 
belief  that  English  is  the  only  language  spoken 
in  heaven,  I  will  only  say  that  at  the  time 
I  was  doing  my  very  best  to  make  a  favourable 
impression.  I  am  not,  of  course,  by  a  very 
long  way,  the  only  Englishman  who  has  unwit- 
tingly gained  for  himself  a  similar  reputation 
in  New  York.  In  my  case,  as  it  fortunately  or 
unfortunately  happened,  the  Fates  busied  them- 
selves to  impress  upon  me  that  so  far  from 
being  a  demigod  I  was  no  more  than  the 
humblest  vagabond  that  creeps  the  earth. 
Many  Englishmen  never  have  this  brought  to 
their  notice  and  they  go  through  the  world, 
quite  unaware  of  the  claim  they  appear  to  be 

192 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


making  to  divine  honours  —  and  so  create  for 
all  their  countrymen  an  uncomplimentary 
legend  that  sticks. 

The  Englishman  usually  considers  New 
York  a  home  of  incivility  because  he  is  socially 
and  psychologically  out  of  his  element.  He 
expects,  from  those  whom  at  home  he  is  ac- 
customed to  consider  his  inferiors,  a  degree  of 
deference  to  which  no  American  —  however 
humble  his  status  —  would  admit  his  right.  If 
he  would  only  regard  the  policeman,  the  tram- 
conductor,  the  railway  guard  as  a  man  and  a 
brother,  he  would  find  them  individually  charm- 
ing. But  he  judges  them  by  their  uniforms 
and  expects  from  them  the  deference  paid  by 
a  private  in  parade  kit  to  a  subaltern  in  mufti. 
Contrariwise,  the  American  in  England  dis- 
covers in  people  of  those  same  occupations  a 
manner  which  strikes  him  as  subservient, 
servile,  even  cringing.  It  is  not  so  in  reality, 
because  it  is  only  a  uniform,  put  on  for  the 
moment  in  deference  to  custom,  but  acknowl- 
edged by  all  parties  to  be  no  more  than  a  uni- 
form. The  footman  in  livery  who  should  find 
193 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

himself  treated  as  a  man  and  a  brother  by  some 
American  guest  at  his  master's  house  would 
consider  himself,  and  very  properly,  insulted. 
One  does  not  speak  to  the  man  at  the  wheel; 
and  he  is  for  the  time  at  the  wheel,  guiding  the 
social  ship  along  its  appointed  track.  Once  in 
plain  clothes  and  the  case  is  altered;  he  will 
hob-nob  with  you  and  treat  you  well  as  a  free 
Englishman  should  and  does  treat  the  stranger 
within  his  gates  —  and  uncommonly  good  com- 
pany you  will  find  him. 

Broadly  speaking  you  will  never  decide 
whether  the  American  or  the  Englishman,  the 
Parisian  or  the  Berliner  or  the  Cypriote  or  the 
Tibetan,  is  the  best-mannered  until  you  can 
establish  a  fixed  basis  of  absolute  value  which 
will  cover  soap  and  beer  and  creamcheese  and 
moonlight  and  poetry  and  prose.  But  it  is 
possible  to  establish  an  internal  standard  in 
each  and  all.  So  far  as  it  is  possible  for  an 
outsider  to  gauge  the  matter  the  New  Yorker 
would  have  no  reputation  for  bad  manners 
anywhere  in  the  world,  for  his  scale,  being 
based  upon  the  common  humanity  of  human 

194 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


beings,  is  a  high  one,  were  it  not  that  he  re- 
joices—  really  rejoices  —  in  one  particular 
sect  or  creed  or  religion  who  make  it  their 
business  in  life  to  cultivate  bad  manners  to 
their  logical  conclusion.  I  refer,  of  course,  as 
anyone  who  has  ever  lived  in  New  York  will 
know  already  —  to  the  men  who  work  the  ele- 
vators in  the  big  public  buildings. 

As  I  was,  after  abandoning  my  employment 
in  the  gambling  world,  for  a  time  a  member  of 
that  profession  I  can  speak  with  some  au- 
thority. I  do  not  think  any  other  trade  or  pro- 
fession in  the  world  could  seriously  challenge 
the  supremacy  of  the  New  York  elevator- 
attendant.  I  know,  of  course,  that  the  young 
duchesses  employed  in  those  "  lunch "  estab- 
lishments which  correspond  to  our  tea-shops 
deserve  honourable  mention.  They  are  very 
rude  indeed  and  haughty  —  a  shade  more  so  I 
think  than  the  staff  of  a  temperance  hotel  in 
England  —  but  they  are,  after  all,  young 
women,  and  of  a  class  from  which  one  expects 
little  courtesy,  unless  one  is  a  nut,  dude,  or 
buck.  Also  they  may  be  put  to  shame;  which 

195 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

certainly  can  be  said  of  no  liftman  anywhere  in 
the  Union.  I  saw  a  neat  rout  of  this  kind  in 
one  of  Child's  lunch  places  —  popularly  known 
as  the  "  Cafe  des  Enfants  " —  near  Times 
Square.  A  Frenchman,  obviously  a  new  im- 
portation, was  paying  his  bill  at  the  cash  desk. 
The  girl  flung  him  a  nickel  change,  so  care- 
lessly that  it  rolled  back,  through  the  little 
grille  to  a  place  under  her  elbow  where  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  retrieve  it  from  without. 
The  Frenchman  waited  for  her  to  hand  it  back 
to  him,  but  she  only  regarded  him  with  the  air 
of  bovine  offensiveness  which  is  the  trade-mark 
of  her  sex  and  class  throughout  the  world.  I 
have  often  wondered  why  this  should  be  so, 
why,  I  mean,  the  young  woman  employed  in  a 
post-office  or  a  telephone  exchange  or  a  tea- 
shop,  or  a  temperance  hotel  —  though  not  in  a 
public-house,  where  I  suppose  the  softening  in- 
fluence of  alcoholic  association  makes  her  more 
genial  —  should  be  so  ubiquitously  offensive  to 
everyone  who  is  not  her  personal  friend  of  the 
other  sex.  Is  it  that  she  believes  it  "  lady- 
like?" Or  that  she  knows  herself  for  the 

196 


poor  defenceless  little  creature  that  she  is  and 
like  a  gecko  lizard  assumes  for  defence  the 
guise  of  a  ravaging  dragon.  Is  it  —  but  I  am 
wandering  from  the  point. 

The  Frenchman,  then,  waited  for  a  while 
and  at  last,  removing  his  hat,  bowed  and  smiled 
affably.  "  You  may  keep  it,  my  good  girl," 
he  said,  "  as  the  reward  of  your  politeness." 
I  was  next  to  him  in  the  queue  of  filled  cus- 
tomers waiting  to  pay,  and  it  pleased  me  greatly 
to  watch  the  young  woman  grow  purple  to  the 
ears  and  hand  across  the  nickel  without  a  word. 
An  elevator-man  would  not  have  been  con- 
fused. He  would  have  pocketed  the  coin  and 
cursed  the  Frenchman  because  it  was  not  more. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  by  some  secret 
Trade  Union  regulation,  elevator-attendants 
always  marry  young  ladies  employed  in  tea- 
shops,  and  that  the  daughters  always  follow  the 
mother's  profession,  while  the  sons  become 
either  liftmen  or  hotel  bell-boys.  I  do  not 
know  whether  this  is  actually  the  case,  because 
while  I  was  an  elevator  attendant  I  never  hap- 
pened to  be  on  intimate  terms  with  a  "  lunch  " 

197 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

waitress,  nor  do  I  know  if  it  is  peculiar  to  New 
York  or  also  in  operation  in  London.  I  shall 
find  out  in  time.  It  is  such  speculations  as 
these  that  make  the  vagabond's  life  interesting 
if  not  lucrative. 

If,  as  I  suppose,  hotel  bell-boys,  promoted  on 
attaining  maturity  to  hotel-clerkships,  are  ac- 
tually the  offspring  of  liftmen- —  (It  is  curious 
by  the  way  how  "  hustling  "  America  always 
prefers  the  longer  of  two  words  while  lazy, 
effete  England  selects  the  shorter)  —  and  of 
tea-shop  girls,  they  are  in  some  degree  an  ex- 
ample of  atavism.  Bell-boy,  hotel-clerk  and, 
to  a  lesser  degree,  waiter,  are  all  alike  tainted 
with  the  un-American  vice  of  servility  and  must, 
therefore,  granted  the  correctness  of  my  sug- 
gested pedigree,  throw  back  to  some  remote 
European  forebear  —  perhaps  the  warder  of  a 
feudal  castle.  They  are  insolent  only  inter- 
mittently; before  the  guest  of  proven  wealth 
they  grovel  with  a  subservience  elsewhere  un- 
known. The  elevator-man,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  insolent  to  rich  and  poor  alike,  to  the  million- 
aire as  to  the  clerk,  to  the  pretty  girl  as  to  the 

198 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


faded  female  with  six  parcels  and  a  string  bag. 
It  is  with  him  a  cult,  a  duty,  a  religion.  I  be- 
lieve —  I  do  not  know,  for  I  was  never  ad- 
mitted to  the  inner  mysteries  of  the  profession 
—  that  there  is  some  hidden  God  of  Insolence 
to  whom  he  offers  incense  before  going  on  duty, 
as  did  the  devotees  of  Thuggism  to  the  red  god- 
dess Kali.  There  is  something  very  admirable 
in  this  fidelity  to  an  ideal  —  seen  from  a  dis- 
tance of  seven  thousand  miles  or  so.  Unfortu- 
nately, here  and  there  is  to  be  found  a  traitor. 
Four  several  times  in  my  experience  have  I  come 
across  an  elevator-attendant  approximating  in 
manners  and  deportments  to  the  ordinary  hu- 
man being  outside  the  Mysteries.  It  is  true 
that,  without  exception,  they  were  only  coloured 
men. 

It  was  by  the  merest  chance  that  I  became 
a  deputy-elevator  man.  After  I  left  my 
Tenderloin  job  I  wandered  down  to  Mac- 
gregor's  saloon  to  see  if  there  was  anything 
going,  and  there  I  met  with  Mr.  Mooney.  It 
is  a  curious  detail,  by  the  way,  that  I  never 
met  an  elevator-man  who  was  not  of  pure 

199 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

British  descent,  except  of  course  the  coloured 
men,  and  even  they  were  Barbadians.  Upon 
the  events,  simple  as  they  were,  of  that  one 
evening,  I  might  base  a  whole  essay  upon  the 
advantages  of  America  over  any  European 
country  you  care  to  mention  as  a  place  of  resi- 
dence when  you  are  out  of  work  and  honestly 
looking  for  it.  I  was  not  inside  the  saloon  for 
more  than  half-an-hour,  yet  within  that  time  I 
had  two  spontaneous  offers  of  employment, 
both  offering  at  least  a  living  wage.  I  wonder 
how  many  public-houses  you  might  enter,  say 
in  Southwark,  before  you  received  even  one. 
Yet  New  York  is  generally  said  by  the  rest,  and 
especially  the  West  of  the  continent,  to  be  the 
grave  of  hopes,  so  far  as  making  a  living  is 
concerned  and  a  poor  man  in  question. 

The  first  offer  came  from  a  "  boy  "  employed 
by  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company. 
I  call  him  a  boy,  because  so  he  called  himself, 
though  he  was  at  least  sixty-five,  very  grizzled 
and  inextricably  wrinkled.  I  foregathered 
with  him  several  times  previously  and  we  found 
a  common  interest  in,  of  all  things  in  the  world, 
200 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


superstition  and  the  history  of  witchcraft.  I 
once  wrote  a  very  clever  book  about  it  —  it  is 
still  on  sale,  I  have  no  doubt,  if  anyone  cares  to 
buy  it.  Denier,  as  my  boyish  friend  was 
called,  had  thought  about  it  —  more  deeply,  I 
fear,  than  ever  I  did  —  and  so  we  became 
friends.  That  is  another  unexpected  side  to 
New  York.  Imagine  dropping  into  the  public 
bar  of  the  "  King's  Arms  "  in  Lower  Sloane 
Street  and  meeting  there  a  casual  labourer  in- 
terested in  the  Cabbala  and  the  Rosy  Cross. 

Dcnier's  offer  was  that  of  dog-leader.  A 
wealthy  lady  of  Madison  Avenue  had  four 
dogs  who  suffered  from  indigestion  through 
lack  of  exercise.  Their  former  attendant  had 
been  dismissed  at  short  notice,  having  con- 
tracted a  cold  in  the  head  and  a  habit  of  snif- 
fing, which  was  bad  for  the  nerves  of  his 
charges.  The  hours  were  few,  the  occupation 
light  —  no  more  than  strolling  in  Central  Park, 
—  and  the  pay  good.  I  was  not  starving  at  the 
moment,  though,  and  so  I  declined  and  two 
minutes  later  I  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Mooney. 

Mr.  Mooney  was  what  I  may  describe  as  the 
201 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General  of  the  ele- 
vator service  in  a  huge  Broadway  building  that 
had  eight  sets  of  lifts  running  at  once.  He 
was  a  small  person,  with  a  game  leg  and  an  ex- 
pression of  determined  malevolence  that  was 
purely  professional.  Naturally  he  was  very 
amiable,  as  I  found  when  he  gave  up  at  least 
an  hour  to  explaining  to  me  the  details  of  my 
duty,  though  it  was  not  at  all  his  own  to  do  so. 
One  of  his  subordinates  was  laid  up  with  a  sud- 
den chill,  and  he  was  watching  out  for  a  sub- 
stitute; and  I  happened  to  come  along  at  the 
right  moment,  and  Mr.  Macgregor  vouched  for 
me  and  I  was  engaged  on  the  spot. 

I  had  no  idea  at  first  of  my  own  good  for- 
tune. There  is,  the  poet  has  told  us,  no  greater 
happiness  than  is  provided  by  satisfied  hatred. 
I  was  to  experience  it.  The  building  over 
whose  lifts  Mr.  Mooney  reigned,  with  a 
crooked  ash-stick  for  sceptre  (about  which  he 
had  a  marvellous  tale  to  tell,  including  two 
murders  and  an  heroic  rescue)  —  housed  the 
offices  of  a  great  daily  paper  with  which  I  had 
been  connected  at  the  time  of  my  first  arrival 
202 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


in  America  and  against  whose  money  editor, 
city  editor  and  editor-in-chief  I  had  three 
separate  and  distinct  grudges.  Let  me  here 
remark  upon  one  peculiarity  of  newspaper  life 
in  America.  A  newspaper  staff  consists  en- 
tirely of  editors.  From  the  smallest  boy  who 
carries  messages,  up  through  all  the  grades 
which  we  should  know  as  compositors  and 
proof-readers  and  reporters  and  sub-editors 
and  managers,  in  America  there  are  none  but 
editors.  They  start  at  the  top  with  about 
twelve  editors-in-chief  and  work  down  to  a  reg- 
iment of  editresses  corresponding  to  char- 
women in  London,  but  transatlantically  known 
as  scrub-lady  editresses.  When  I  was  working 
express  elevator  No.  6  I  became,  without 
knowing  it,  an  editor  —  assistant-express-ele- 
vator-editor I  think  it  was  officially  called  — 
from  the  fifteenth  to  the  twenty-third  floors,  on 
which  the  newspaper  offices  were  situated. 
Below  them  I  lapsed,  as  it  were,  into  private 
life  again. 

If  satisfied  revenge  is  the  highest  human  hap- 
piness I  certainly  attained  it  in  that  editorial 
203 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

post.  Being  the  express,  which  was  to  say  the 
fastest  running  of  the  elevators,  it  was  that 
most  used  by  my  fellow-editors.  On  the  very 
first  day  I  carried  upwards,  in  one  load,  my 
three  old-time  enemies.  By  a  still  more  re- 
markable coincidence  that  elevator  broke  down 
between  the  sixth  and  seventh  floors  and  stuck 
there.  It  stuck  for  something  like  twenty  min- 
utes, and  all  that  time  I  was  in  the  happy  posi- 
tion of  an  Early  Christian  lion  surrounded  by 
martyrs.  I  had  them  all  on  their  knees,  and 
two  of  them  in  tears,  before  I  let  them  out. 

I  did  not  keep  that  post  very  long  —  having 
been  appointed  only  as  a  stop-gap  —  but  I 
think  I  can  honestly  say  that  I  did  nothing  to 
lower  the  high  standard  of  the  profession  in 
the  way  of  ill-manners.  It  was  curious  how 
natural  they  became  and  how  soon.  On  my 
first  day  I  several  times  as  nearly  as  possible 
disgraced  myself  for  good  and  all.  An  old 
gentleman,  I  remember,  who  was  carrying  a 
number  of  parcels,  dropped  one,  and  I  picked 
it  up  and  handed  it  to  him.  Fortunately  none 
of  my  colleagues  saw  me  —  it  happened  on  the 
204 


In  the  Matter  of  Manners 


entrance  floor;  but  I  still  remember  the  flush 
of  shame  that  came  over  me  at  the  thought  of 
how  I  had  betrayed  them.  Twenty-four  hours 
later  an  old  lady  slipped  as  she  entered  and 
nearly  fell.  I  felt  the  impulse  to  go  to  her  as- 
sistance, but  mastered  it  in  time.  By  the  third 
day  if  all  the  old  ladies  in  Manhattan  had 
fallen  round  me  in  sheafs  and  been  in  imminent 
danger  I  should  have  jeered  at  them  with  abso- 
lute spontaneity. 

Why  this  should  be  I  have  never  been  able 
to  decide  —  the  inevitable  rudeness  of  the  New 
York  liftman,  I  mean.  A  policeman  has  as 
much  power  —  yet  he  is  always  amiable ;  a 
bar-tender  is  as  much  respected  —  yet  he  is  the 
essence  of  politeness.  I  believed  for  a  time 
that  electricky  might  have  something  to  do 
with  it,  yet  the  hydraulic  liftman  is  as  rude  as 
any  of  his  fellows.  Only  one  clue  I  have  dis- 
covered. Those  in  charge  of  express  eleva- 
tors are,  speaking  generally,  ruder  than  their 
"  calling  at  every  floor  "  brethren.  Possibly 
the  rush  of  blood  to  the  head  —  and  feet  — 
consequent  upon  continual  careering  up  and 
205 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

down  at  great  speed  may  have  something  to  do 
with  it.  Some  day  I  am  going  to  study  the 
English  liftman  and  his  manners,  and  perhaps, 
with  his  help,  evolve  a  theory. 

As  I  say,  my  experience  was  but  short,  yet  it 
will  always  be  a  satisfaction  to  remember  that 
I  was  for  a  time  a  member  of  a  caste  quite  su- 
perior to  the  ordinary  decencies  of  life,  and 
one  which,  rightly  or  wrongly,  has  been  en- 
abled to  erect  its  personal  and  trade  idiosyn- 
crasy into  an  international  legend. 


206 


CHAPTER  XIX 

"Follow  the  Crowd" 


WHILE  I  was  in  New  York  the 
gentleman  ubiquitously  known  — 
and  loved  in  some  places  —  as 
"  Boss  Croker,"  happened  to  return  from  Eu- 
rope where,  for  some  reason  best  known  to 
himself,  he  now  elects  to  live.  He  was,  of 
course,  welcomed  by  many  reporters  and  to 
them  he  loosed  one  gem  of  thought,  which  I 
have  ever  since  remembered.  It  was  that  he 
thanked  God  he  had  again  returned  to  a  city 
conducted  on  modern  and  progressive  lines. 

Of  course  Mr.  Croker  is  a  better  judge  of 
municipal  management  than  I  could  ever  hope 
to  be.  I  have  been  told  that  he  has  freely 
expended  his  life  and  his  intelligence  and  his 
large  private  fortune  on  the  furtherance  of 
purity  and  the  stamping  out  of  "  graft "  and 
207 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

similar  abuses  in  municipal  life.  I  had  in- 
tended therefore  to  refer  to  him  as  a  typical 
American  citizen,  had  not  another  American 
citizen,  who  is  my  very  good  friend,  practically 
threatened  me  with  personal  violence  if  I  did 
anything  of  the  sort. 

As  a  mere  outsider  and  looker-on  I  do  not 
profess  to  understand  the  rights  of  this.  I 
will  therefore  only  say  that,  while  I  do  not  al- 
together agree  with  the  anti-European  in- 
nuendo contained  in  the  Great  Thought  I  have 
quoted,  I  am  thoroughly  in  agreement  with 
what  Mr.  Croker  went  on  to  say:  That  New 
York  beyond  all  other  cities  exemplifies  the 
progress  of  democracy.  In  so  far  as  the  aim 
and  end  of  democracy  is  to  exalt  the  crowd 
above  the  individual,  New  York  can  certainly 
give  points  even  to  Glasgow,  with  Manchester 
a  bad  third  and  London  altogether  out  of  the 
running. 

I  am  not,  for  my  sins,  a  believer  in  demo- 
cracy. My  own  little  preference  in  the  way  of 
government,  if  I  had  any  voice  in  the  matter, 
which  thank  God  I  never  had,  would  be  for  a 
208 


"Follow  the  Crowd" 


benevolent  despotism  tempered  by  assassina- 
tion. I  believe,  I  mean,  that  it  is  better  for  ten 
thousand  ciphers  to  die  if  thereby  One  M!an 
may  be  brought  to  perfect  fruition.  But  in 
this  I  know  that  I  am  very  silly,  even  impious, 
and  that  when  I  get  to  the  next  world  it  will 
be  proved  to  me,  painfully.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
New  York  is  to  me  the  most  interesting  of  the 
modern  cities  with  which  I  have  any  personal 
acquaintance  because  it  does,  more  than  any  of 
its  sister-capitals,  exemplify  that  side  of 
democracy  which  entails,  not  all  for  one,  but 
one  for  all. 

We  laugh,  in  London  loudly,  in  New  York 
more  discreetly  —  by  "  we  "  I  mean  the  peo- 
ple who  make  their  living  out  of  the  public 
by  pandering  to  its  preferences  —  at  the 
"  rubberer,"  anglice  the  man  whose  neck, 
through  constant  straining  to  see  over  the  heads 
of  the  crowd,  has  become  elastic.  Yet  he  typi- 
fies the  whole  community,  as,  in  the  future,  I 
suppose,  the  whole  democratic  world.  I  can 
speak  with  authority,  because  I  was  for  a  time 
one  of  the  objects  of  his  most  earnest  regard. 
209 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

That  is  to  say  that  after  I  left  my  post  as  dep- 
uty-assistant-express-elevator-editor, I  sat  for 
three  weeks  in  the  window  of  a  shop  on  Broad- 
way illustrating  the  virtues  of  a  razor  strop. 
It  was  really  a  very  good  razor  strop,  though 
after  a  time  I  became  prejudiced  against  it; 
but  I  chiefly  remember  it  now  as  connected 
with  innumerable  round  pink  things,  like 
anemones  in  an  aquarium,  all  pressing  against 
the  outside  of  the  glass,  and  innumerable 
solemn  eyes  staring  at  me  like  cows.  They 
used  to  fascinate  me  so  much  that  I  forgot  al- 
together I  was  supposed  to  be  cutting  shavings 
off  blocks  of  wood  with  the  razors  I  had  sharp- 
ened, and  just  stared  back  at  them.  Not  that 
that  reduced  the  crowds;  once  started  they 
would  have  gone  on  staring  just  the  same  if  a 
black  cloth  had  been  drawn  right  across  the 
shop  front.  I  won  a  dollar  from  a  guileless 
New  Yorker  over  that  once  by  a  trick  very, 
very  old  in  London,  but  of  course  new  to  New 
York.  I  bet  him  that  I  could  draw  a  crowd 
of  a  thousand  people  in  ten  minutes  by  merely 
standing  still.  I  did  it,  with  minutes  to  spare, 
210 


"Follow  the  Crowd" 


by  staring  at  the  corner  of  a  tailor's  window. 
I  forget  whether  three  or  four  men  were 
clubbed  to  death  before  the  police  could  clear 
the  sidewalk  —  four,  I  think. 

If  a  London  tailor  wants  to  advertise  the  ex- 
cellence of  his  wares  he  endeavours  to  intimate 
that  they  are  intended  only  for  the  select  few. 
If  he  is  in  New  York  he  sets  about  it  like  this: 
u  Seven  million  smart  young  chaps  are  wearing 
our  Ten-Dollar,  Ready-to- Wear,  Tuxedo  Suit- 
ings. Follow  the  Crowd."  They  do,  too. 
No  true  New  Yorker  would  think  of  putting 
on  a  pair  of  trousers  until  he  was  quite  sure 
that  at  least  a  million  others  had  preceded  him 
in  them.  In  my  window,  just  over  my  head, 
was  a  large  ticket,  setting  forth  how  many 
millions  of  my  razor  strop  had  been  sold. 
One  of  my  duties  was  to  be  handed  a  telegram 
every  half-hour,  to  open  it  with  an  expression 
of  wonder,  and  to  add  another  half-million  to 
the  total  above  me.  We  began  with  a  mil- 
lion and  a-quarter,  I  remember,  and  I  put  my 
foot  in  it  rather  badly.  It  was  a  new  line,  only 
put  on  the  market  that  morning,  and  I  sug- 
211 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

gested  that  it  would  be  just  as  well  to  start 
with  a  really  impressive  number  —  ten  or 
twenty  million.  The  shop-manager  was  very 
much  annoyed.  He  said  that  the  proprietor 
was  the  head  of  I  forget  what  religious  com- 
munity, and  had  all  his  life  long  set  his  face 
against  business  trickery  and  exaggerations, 
and  that  if  I  wanted  to  deceive  the  public  I  had 
better  go  elsewhere  to  do  it.  I  did  after  a  bit, 
because  there  was  another  store,  two  blocks 
down,  where  they  wanted  a  man  to  recline  in 
a  newly  invented  chair  and  do  nothing  except 
read  a  novel,  with  a  little  nigger  boy  to  change 
the  totals  for  him,  and  that  struck  me  as  bet- 
ter suited  to  my  capacities.  I  had  to  wait, 
though,  for  a  time,  because  there  was  a  lot  of 
competition  for  the  post,  and  meanwhile  I  got 
corns  all  over  my  palms  from  the  razor  han- 
dles. All  the  same,  I  was  sorry  I  had  changed 
afterwards,  when  I  found  I  was  expected  to 
read  the  same  novel  over  and  over  again,  to 
save  wear  and  tear.  It  was  by  Mrs.  Hum- 
phrey Ward,  and  I  learned  it  by  heart  and 
used  to  recite  it  to  myself  at  night,  and  I  think 

212 


"Follow  the  Crowd" 


I  should  have  gone  mad  if  I  had  not  been 
struck  by  a  bright  idea.  I  suggested  to  the 
manager  that  it  would  go  down  well  with  the 
religious  public  if  I  were  to  read  something  of 
an  improving  tendency,  and  he  thought  well  of 
it  and  got  a  second-hand  Old  Testament  cheap 
—  which  would  appeal,  he  said,  to  Jews  and 
Christians  alike  —  and  I  learned  that  by  heart, 
too,  which  proved  extremely  useful  later  on, 
when  I  received  a  call  to  the  ministry  —  but 
that  is  a  purely  private  matter. 

I  was  first  struck  by  the  sameness  of  the  demo- 
cratic crowd  on  noticing  one  day  that  all  the 
men  who  were  staring  at  me  were  wearing 
coats  of  exactly  the  same  cut  and  colour,  and 
had  their  lips  pursed  into  exactly  the  same  lines, 
and  their  hair  shaved  away  behind  their  ears 
to  exactly  the  same  width,  and  wore  their  hats 
at  exactly  the  same  angle  and  bent  their  heads 
over  their  left  shoulders  —  never  the  right  — 
in  exactly  the  same  way.  After  that  I  studied 
the  matter  more  closely,  and  it  never  varied. 
If  one  man  wore  an  overcoat  they  all  did,  and 
if  one  man  was  smoking  a  particular  kind  of 
213 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

cigar  they  all  did  —  and  it  was  just  the  same 
with  the  women.  It  puzzled  me  for  a  time, 
because  I  did  not  realise  how  they  were  able  to 
time  the  changes  so  exactly.  I  found  out  at 
last  that  it  was  through  reading  the  news- 
papers. There  was  one  really  terrible  spring 
day  when  half  the  men  I  saw  were  wearing 
straw  hats  and  the  other  half  black  billycocks. 
There  was  a  dreadful  look  of  uncertainty  on 
their  faces,  too,  and  from  the  side-long  way 
they  kept  looking  at  each  other  instead  of  at 
me,  I  was  afraid  there  was  going  to  be  a  revo- 
lution or  something.  What  had  really  hap- 
pened was  that  the  Evening  Journal  and  the 
Telegram  had  fallen  out  over  whether  Straw- 
Hat  day  ought  to  fall  on  the  Wednesday  or  the 
Thursday.  It  had  something  to  do  with  the 
Gregorian  Calendar,  I  think,  and  the  Equinoxes, 
but  the  result  was  quite  dreadful.  I  forget 
how  many  suicides  were  attributed  to  that  dis- 
pute, owing  to  the  prevalent  uncertainty,  but 
on  the  Thursday,  when  both  authorities  were 
united  in  saying  that  the  day  had  really  come 
when  straw  hats  were  de  rigueur  the  sigh  of 
214 


"Follow  the  Crowd" 


relief  that  went  up  throughout  the  City  —  and 
the  State,  too,  I  expect  —  made  Broadway 
sound  like  the  inside  of  a  volcano. 

The  real  reason  for  all  this  is  the  fierce  de- 
sire to  be  American.  If  you  remember  that  of 
the  whole  population  of  New  York  only  three 
individuals  are  officially  recorded  to  have  been 
born  in  America  at  all,  that  two  of  them  died 
in  infancy  and  the  third  was  electrocuted,  you 
will  realise  that  this  ideal  is  not  so  easy  of 
achievement  as  it  looks,  or  would  not  be  but 
for  the  newspapers  and  the  advertising  tailors. 
Thanks  to  them,  though,  every  native-born 
New  Yorker  as  soon  as  he  arrives  from  Cra- 
cow, Odessa,  or  Lozengrad,  as  the  case  may  be, 
no  sooner  lands  than  he  is  seized  upon  by  his 
relatives  —  or  if  he  have  none,  by  the  Immi- 
gration officers  —  and  inducted  into  the  regu- 
lation suit,  hat,  cut  of  hair,  smile,  or  frown, 
whichever  is  for  the  moment  most  American  — 
and  so  passes  at  once  into  the  indistinguishable 
ruck.  Within  three  weeks  he  has  learned  to 
think,  within  a  month  to  speak,  in  precisely  the 
same  way  as  do  the  rest  of  his  fellow  citizens, 
215 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

and  within  a  year  he  was  born  in  Jersey  City 
and  his  great-great-grandfather  came  from 
England.  That  is  one  reason  why  if  you  make 
a  hit  in  America  it  is  such  a  very  big  hit  indeed. 
If  one  man  admires  a  book,  or  a  play,  or  a  rag- 
time melody,  or  a  new  brand  of  Frankfurters 
or  religion,  the  whole  population  does  so  unani- 
mously —  and  contrariwise.  It  is  the  same  in 
politics  and  patriotism  and  morals  generally. 
"  Follow  the  crowd,"  says  the  native-born  New 
Yorker,  "  and  you  can't  go  wrong." 

As  the  loyal  subject  of  a  Monarch,  with  an 
Established  Church,  for  the  moment  at  any 
rate,  a  titled  aristocracy  and  a  catechism  which 
reminds  me  of  my  duty  towards  my  betters,  I 
might  be  inclined  to  sneer  at  this,  were  it  not 
that  England  also  to-day  exalts  Demos  to  a 
seat  among  the  gods.  If  we  are  ready  to  ad- 
mit —  which  I  for  one  am  not  —  that  Jack  is 
as  good  as  his  master  and  better,  too  —  then 
there  can  be  no  question  that  Mr.  Croker  has 
the  rights  of  it.  We  are  all  going  the  same 
way  and  New  York  is  going  a  little  faster  than 
London  —  and  Pekin,  if  all  accounts  be  true  — 
216 


"Follow  the  Crowd' 


faster  than  either.  Let  us  then,  and  all  to- 
gether, do  our  little  best  to  hasten  the  day 
when,  throughout  all  the  world,  we  shall  all 
change  felt  for  straw  upon  Straw-Hat  day. 
Only  let  us,  wherever  we  may  be,  see  to  it  that 
someone  does  not  make  handsome  profit  out 
of  our  fidelity  to  an  impossible  ideal  —  as  it 
may  be  is  the  case  to-day  in  New  York  and 
nearer  home. 


217 


CHAPTER  XX 

Eastward  Ho! 


EXPERIENCE  is,  I  have  no  doubt, 
very  useful  in  the  art  of  steam-ship 
stoking  if  you  propose  to  adopt  it  as 
your  permanent  profession;  which  you  do  not, 
except  as  an  alternative  to  a  life  sentence  or 
the  electric  chair.  If  you  approach  it  only  as 
an  amateur,  you  can  get  along  without  any  very 
great  skill.  You  need  a  lot  of  strength  in  your 
arms,  though,  and  a  sound  heart,  lungs  and 
other  incidentals.  If  you  are  predisposed  to 
bad  colds  in  the  head,  you  will  find  it  healthier 
to  commit  a  murder,  after  all. 

Nevertheless,  a  stoker,  so  far  as  my  per- 
sonal experience  goes,  has  many  advantages. 
For  one  thing,  he  does  not  have  to  wash.  He 
may  if  he  wishes  to,  of  course  —  I  never  heard 
of  any  regulation  against  it  —  but  as  nothing 
218 


Eastward  Ho! 


short  of  flaying  would  make  any  difference,  he 
does  not  usually  worry  about  it.  Similarly, 
he  does  not  have  to  think  about  clothes.  He 
generally  wears  an  eyeglass  and  a  smile,  or 
something  like  that,  unless  he  is  very  proud  of 
his  figure,  which  I  personally  am  not,  but  they 
are  at  best  a  vanity.  Lastly,  he  is  treated  by 
his  superior  officers,  captains,  pursers,  engi- 
neers and  the  like,  as  though  he  were  a  duke. 
I  know  that  such  is  not  the  popular  impression, 
but  I  speak  from  personal  knowledge.  It  is 
true  that  when  I  assisted  to  work  a  certain 
Atlantic  liner  that  shall  be  nameless  eastward 
from  New  York,  I  was  one  of  a  happy  family 
of  what  are  known  in  American  labour  circles 
as  "  scabs  "  or  in  England  as  blacklegs. 

It  was  by  accident  rather  than  design  that  I 
became  a  stoker  and  a  scab.  I  was  doing 
fairly  well  in  New  York  at  the  time,  which  is 
to  say  that  I  quite  frequently  had  enough  to 
eat.  What  is  more  I  had  excellent  prospects. 
More  fortunate  even  than  the  proverbial  ass 
I  had  three  distinct  avenues  of  occupation  open 
before  me.  I  had  the  chance  —  yes,  really  — 
219 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

of  entering  the  ministry.  It  came  from  Con- 
necticut, through  my  old  friend  Mr.  Wolff, 
who  wrote  that  he  believed  me  to  have  hidden 
somewhere  deep  within  me  the  means  of  grace; 
and  that  two  of  the  bears  were  dead,  and  that 
a  third  had  got  into  trouble  through  trying  to 
embrace  the  wife  of  a  leading  member  of  the 
flock.  Then  through  a  chance  meeting  with 
Cap  Lane,  who  was  on  his  way  to  get  married, 
I  heard  that  Helga's  father  had  made  a  stand- 
ing offer  to  give  me  employment  in  his  business, 
which  had  something  to  do  with  typewriting. 
I  learnt  from  Cap  Lane,  by  the  way,  that  Helga 
herself  had  assured  him  that  I  was  a  Russian 
P'rince  fleeing  from  the  displeasure  of  my  uncle 
the  Tsar,  so  it  was  clear  to  me  that  her  health 
had  not  suffered  from  immersion.  My  friend 
Dempsey  was  back  on  his  beat  again  and  when 
I  told  him  how  I  had  been  mistaken  for  a  de- 
tective at  Amicus,  he  suggested  that,  granted 
a  sufficient  "  pull,"  towards  which  he  thought 
he  might  himself  assist  me,  I  might  enter  the 
police-force  with  good  prospects  of  becoming 
a  "  sleuth  "  in  actual  fact. 
220 


Eastward  Ho! 


My  prospects  were  thus  at  their  brightest  at 
the  moment  I  left  New  York,  though  only  as 
I  hope  temporarily.  Unable  to  decide  between 
the  various  dazzling  prospects  opening  out  be- 
fore me,  I  temporised.  They  were  expecting 
a  strike  on  at  one  of  the  big  hotels  Central 
Park  way.  There  usually  is  of  course  an  hotel 
strike  on  hand  in  New  York,  but  I  happened  to 
hear  of  this  through  a  man  I  met  at  Mac- 
gregor's.  They  expected  to  want  temporary 
waiters  for  a  week  or  two  and  it  occurred  to  me 
that  I  wanted  a  dress  suit.  The  strike  was  not 
to  be  declared  for  a  fortnight  or  so,  and  while 
the  New  York  tailors  obstinately  refused  to 
give  me  credit  I  knew  there  was  one  in  London 
upon  whose  infinite  credulity  I  thought  I  could 
still  build.  I  calculated  I  should  just  have 
time  to  see  London  again,  get  some  clothes 
and  be  back  in  time  to  report  for  work. 

Just  then,  by  some  oversight,  one  of  the 
newspapers  paid  me  some  money  it  owed  me, 
which,  with  the  eighty-five  cents  I  had  saved  up, 
made  up  enough  for  the  return  trip,  steerage. 

That  decided  me  and  I  went  off  to  book  my 
221 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

passage  and  just  in  time  I  heard  of  that  heaven- 
sent seamen's  strike,  and  so  I  got  my  passage 
and  fifteen  dollars  as  well.  Glory  be!  Inci- 
dentally I  was  fifty  times  better  off  as  a  stoker 
than  were  the  unhappy  steerage  passengers 
who  had  paid  about  a  pound  a  day  each  for  the 
privilege  of  being  bullied. 

I  suppose  there  never  was  such  a  mixed 
crowd  of  stokers  since  the  days  of  Noah.  The 
authorities  of  the  line  were  very  anxious  to  get 
the  boat  over  to  England,  where  there  was  no 
strike  and  they  could  count  on  getting  a  crew, 
so  they  took  anyone  they  could  get.  Many  of 
us  had  never  been  to  sea  before,  and  as  the 
passage  was  on  the  rough  side,  the  scenes  in4 
the  stoke-hold  the  first  and  second  days  out 
would  require  the  pen  of  a  lady  novelist  to  do 
them  justice.  We  took  eleven  days  on  the 
voyage  instead  of  seven,  and  by  the  time  we 
reached  port  most  of  us  were  convalescent.  I 
was  very  popular  with  my  superiors,  because  I 
was  fool  enough  not  to  tumble  to  the  idea  of 
being  sea-sick  until  it  was  too  late,  and  really 
did  quite  a  lot  of  shovelling.  It  was  quite  hard 
222 


Eastward  Ho! 


work,  too,  especially  when,  as  frequently  hap- 
pened, the  laws  of  gravity  entailed  that  you 
should  stand  on  your  head  every  few  minutes 
while  the  ship  made  up  her  mind  which  way 
she  would  dodge  a  particularly  truculent  wave. 
We  had  been  everywhere  and  done  everything 
from  driving  a  milk-cart  to  directing  a  coal 
trust,  everything  except  stoking,  that  is  to 
say.  A  number  of  us  were  coloured  —  nat- 
urally —  we  drew  no  absurd  colour  line  —  and 
by  a  curious  coincidence  the  coloured  men  were 
all  near  relations  to  Booker  Washington  —  all 
except  one,  who  was  in  my  watch  and  was  of  a 
religious  turn  of  mind.  He  was  eighty-fourth 
in  direct  descent  from  one  of  the  Magi  — 
Balthazar,  if  I  remember  aright  —  and  very 
proud  of  it. 

A  "  scab  "  does  not  expect  to  be  popular,  but 
I  am  bound  to  say  that  never  before  or  since 
have  so  many  people  been  anxious  to  make  my 
acquaintance.  They  used  to  hang  about  out- 
side the  company's  wharf  by  fifties  at  a  time, 
beseeching  us  for  interviews,  and  holding  out 
half-bricks  and  paving  stones  and  clubs  and 
223 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

revolvers  to  tempt  us  with.  We  were  not  des- 
tined to  meet  them  personally;  we  were  taken 
aboard  by  tug,  starting  from  an  East  River 
wharf  way  up  on  the  other  side  of  the  island 
where  they  did  not  expect  us,  and  when  we  got 
on  shipboard  we  stayed  there.  They  were  not 
discouraged,  and  when  the  voyage  started  they 
chartered  a  couple  of  tugs  and  accompanied 
us  down  the  harbour  shouting  farewells  and 
other  things  through  megaphones.  A  pleasant 
little  rumour  went  round  about  then  that  we 
should  probably  find  dynamite  bombs  in  the 
coal-bunkers,  find  them  after  we  had  fed  them 
into  the  furnaces  and  departed  skyward,  that 
is  to  say. 

If  it  has  its  drawbacks,  scabbing  has  its  ad- 
vantages as  well.  With  the  object-lesson  of 
their  late  employes  before  them,  those  in 
authority  bestir  themselves  to  make  you  happy 
and  comfortable.  They  don't  have  to  worry 
about  the  passengers,  because  they  can't  strike, 
or  if  they  did,  they  would  only  be  playing  into 
the  Company's  hands,  who  would  put  them  in 
irons  or  something,  and  feed  them  on  bread  and 
224 


Eastward  Ho! 


water  and  save  money.  They  couldn't  do  that 
to  us,  unless  they  wanted  to  remain  perma- 
nently stranded  in  mid-Atlantic  like  the  Flying 
Dutchman.  We  did  not  waste  time  either  in 
letting  them  know  exactly  how  matters  stood: 
those  of  us  I  mean  who  were  not  sea-sick. 

The  day  after  leaving  New  York  the  stal- 
warts among  us  explained  that  we  really  could 
not  work  if  we  were  not  better  fed.  We  were 
getting  the  same  food  as  the  steerage  passen- 
gers at  that  time,  but  afterwards  we  were  given 
second-cabin  fare,  and  what  we  left  was  given 
to  the  steerage.  We  got  discontented  again  a 
day  or  two  later  —  there  were  more  of  us  by 
that  time  —  and  the  captain,  and  the  chief  en- 
gineer, and  the  purser  all  apologised  to  us  one 
after  the  other,  and  said  we  could  have  anything 
we  felt  we  fancied  —  and  took  it  out  of  the 
unhappy  steerage  passengers.  I  never  realised 
before  the  amazing  patience,  if  that  is  the  right 
name  for  it,  of  the  poor.  They  were  mostly 
Italians  from  the  coal-mining  districts  of  Penn- 
sylvania, who  were  going  back  to  Italy  for  a 
holiday.  There  was  a  sprinkling  of  English, 
225 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

and  no  Americans.  It  was  an  American  ship, 
and  they  knew  better.  They  were  paying  very 
much  what  they  would  have  to  pay  at  a  de- 
cent hotel  in  England,  yet  they  were  bullied, 
and  swindled,  and  abused  by  every  one,  from 
the  stewards  down  to  the  ship's  boys.  They 
slept  on  mattresses  stuffed  with  some  kind  of 
mouldy  seaweed.  It  was  one  of  my  jobs  to 
help  empty  those  mattresses  overboard  after 
we  reached  England,  and  I  shall  not  forget  it 
in  a  hurry.  They  had  three  iron  basins  with- 
out any  water  to  wash  themselves  in  —  about 
a  hundred  of  them  —  with  the  result  that  they 
didn't  wash  at  all  throughout  the  voyage;  such 
a  thing  as  a  bath  was  undreamt  of  *^>  except  in 
the  advertisements  of  the  line  —  and  the  lava- 
tory accommodation  would  have  insulted  the 
dirtiest  hog  that  ever  wallowed.  Most  of  the 
food  they  got  was  uneatable,  the  meat  tainted, 
and  so  forth.  I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I 
say  that  we  of  the  crew  refused  it.  Fortu- 
nately for  them  they  were  not  over-crowded. 
What  it  must  be  like  on  a  West-bound  trip, 
when  the  boat  is  crammed  from  bow  to  stern, 
226 


Eastward  Ho! 


is  wonderful  to  think.  This,  as  I  say,  was  an 
American  boat,  but  I  am  told  that  the  condi- 
tions are  just  the  same  on  the  English  lines; 
that  the  French  are  rather  better;  and  that  the 
Germans  do  actually  treat  their  steerage  pas- 
sengers as  though  they  were  something  mod- 
erately human.  I  know  that  not  a  day  passed 
but  I  thanked  the  kindly  Providence  that  had 
saved  me  from  such  a  fate,  and  made  me  a  free 
stoker  and  a  gentleman. 

It  was  a  pleasant  voyage  in  many  ways. 
For  one  thing,  there  was  no  attempt  at  discip- 
line, so  far  as  the  crew  was  concerned.  About 
two-thirds  of  us  —  stokers,  stewards,  deck- 
hands, or  whatever  our  technical  names  might 
be  —  had  never  been  on  board  ship  before. 
The  unhappy  officers  soon  found  it  was  useless 
to  try  to  teach  us  anything,  so  they  did  the 
work  themselves.  The  rest  of  us  spent  our 
time  grumbling  and  playing  cards  and  tossing 
for  ha'pence  when  we  were  not  flirting  with 
the  young  ladies  of  the  steerage.  When  we 
were  off  duty  we  spent  most  of  our  time  with 
the  steerage  passengers  —  which  was,  of  course, 
227 


A  Vagabond  in  New  York 

strictly  forbidden  —  and  a  very  decent  set  of 
people  they  were,  with,  as  I  have  said,  an  in- 
finite capacity  of  patience.  I  amused  myself 
trying  to  get  up  a  conspiracy  among  them  to 
murder  the  dispensary  steward,  whose  manners 
annoyed  me,  in  order  to  call  attention  to  their 
grievances,  and  I  think  that  something  might 
have  come  of  it  if  one  of  the  men  had  not  pos- 
sessed a  mandolin  and  another  a  guitar.  Ac- 
cordingly, instead  of  murdering  and  mutinying, 
they  spent  their  whole  time  dancing  and  singing 
"  Funiculi,  Funicula."  There  was,  of  course, 
a  great  preponderance  of  men,  who  thus  had 
to  dance  together,  and  most  beautifully  they 
waltzed.  Some  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  endeav- 
oured to  introduce  the  Turkey  Trot  and  the 
Grizzly  Bear  Hug,  but  they  were  frowned 
upon,  I  am  glad  to  say. 

We  reached  port  in  safety  at  last,  more 
through  luck  than  judgment,  I  for  one  believe, 
and  there  I  drew  my  money  and  got  into  the 
funny  little  English  toy-train,  and  raced  up  to 
London  through  the  pretty  little  countryside 
that  looks  so  neat  and  clean  and  sweet  that  you 
228 


Eastward  Ho! 


are  kept  in  agonies  all  the  time  lest  somebody 
shall  drop  a  piece  of  paper  out  of  the  train  on 
it  and  spoil  it.  It  was  a  weird  voyage  and  I 
don't  know  that  I  particularly  want  to  play  at 
being  a  scab  stoker  again.  But  I  did  learn 
one  piece  of  wisdom  which  was  more  than 
worth  it.  The  next  time  I  am  very  hard  up 
and  want  to  go  to  America,  I  shall  not  go  as 
a  steerage  passenger;  I  shall  save  my  money 
and  go  as  a  stowaway.  They  are  quite  as  well 
fed  and  lodged  and  very  much  better  treated. 


229 


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